Pushthrough – A Maritime Historical by Michele B. Moon
Based upon a true story, Pushthrough takes place upon the North Atlantic’s Grand Banks during the turn of the Twentieth Century, the British Commonwealth: Pushthrough, Newfoundland. The novel begins during the reign of King George V, early on touching the heart of WWI as told from a young dory fisherman’s point of view. Life was based upon survival of the fittest for the dory fishermen, and change was interwoven as intrinsically as the tides. It is a time when commercial and military sea passage marked Newfoundland on the map during numerous pioneering feats, especially the cod fishing frenzy—the North Atlantic’s “gold.”
Pushthrough reveals the survival and life changing events, a Bildungsroman of the young dory fisherman, Jerry Sutton, and the changes in the commercial cod fishing industry throughout The Great War and its aftermath. It is a young life’s story of survival with subtle political, religious and literary references throughout the novel which shape the young fisherman from the tender age of four to seventeen. It is a tale of the human spirit under extreme conditions, a cold rugged terrain, and perils of the sea. From the beginning, Jerry knows that he does not want to die as his namesake and uncle, Jeremiah Sutton, “lost at sea” off the Gloucester coast, a schooner dory fisherman aboard the Arethusa the year of Jerry’s birth, 1910.
A wake of obstacles and triumphs follow Jerry, as he learns early on that the sea gives as well as takes. He must follow into his father’s footsteps and become a dory fisherman by the age of thirteen. “Loss” represents the inner conflict, a constant turmoil for the young fisherman, and was considered an expected way of life. There is an element of mysticism throughout the novel, echoing the spirit of the whale that named the town, as Jerry fights his very own “Battle of the Sea” and learns what it means to become a man, a dory fisherman.
Jeff Weaver’s “Fog on the Banks”