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Nora Tyler returns to Alaska after many years away and finds work on a salmon fishing boat, but the long, hard season brings both deep friendships and unexpected violence.
Over the course of the long, hard season, Nora reawakens to the beauty of fishing for salmon on the outer coast. Her four crewmates have their own troubled pasts, and she forms a different bond with each one. A rivalry develops with another boat, the Viking Hero. When a woman is lost overboard from the Hero, Nora tries to understand what happened and finds that the Hero was dealing drugs and her crewmate Danny was part of the action. Toby’s ex-girlfriend, Sara, takes the place of the missing woman and finds herself in a difficult situation with no easy way out. At the end of the season, Nora and her crewmates go duck hunting on the Stikine River flats. Two of the Hero’s crew appear, perhaps not by chance, and the confrontation turns violent.
"Overall, McGuire's writing is as precise and lyrical as any of our best contemporary novelists. It's also consistently knowing and intelligent about technologies, geography and the natural world, the motives and desires of human beinds, and even literary and cultural references. [...] McGuire's depictions of Southeast Alaska, the world of commercial fishing and human behaviors are perfectly rendered, page after page." —Anchorage Daily News
Featured in the Shelf Unbound list of 2024 Indie Summer Reads
"In The Curve of Equal Time, Thomas McGuire accomplishes something remarkable: a taut page-turner with an authentic Alaskan voice. He captures the transience and connection of people engaged in the Alaska fisheries with rich, lived-in detail while spinning a plot that ensnares the reader as surely as the salmon caught in the seines he vividly describes. A masterful work of fiction that ripples in the mind long after the last chapter." —Zachary Falcon, author Cabin, Clearing, Forest
"McGuire’s fast-moving crime read evokes a desperate but colorful way of life in Alaska’s southeast fishing communities. The story’s vivid sounds, smells, and characters linger long after the last page." —Jessica Cherry, co-editor Wheels on Ice: Stories of Cycling in Alaska