Earl Swift, Chesapeake Requiem *****

Chesapeake Requiem is an intimate portrait of the small crab-fishing community of Tangier Island, located in Chesapeake Bay. Their way of life is vanishing both literally and figuratively: every year the Bay washes away more of the island, and every generation loses more of its people to the mainland. The journalist Earl Swift lived on the island for a year. He describes the history of the island, both natural and cultural, the lifestyle of the residents, and the social questions raised by its not-so-slow erosion. 

I enjoyed the book for its detailed anthropological depiction of the day-to-day life and work of the islanders, and for the mostly subtle way it approached larger issues. Swift sticks closely to the lived experience of the people on the island, rarely making explicit the abstract ethical and political principles involved. For example, he explains how the watermen understand the causes of land loss rather than emphasizing their disbelief in climate change and sea-level rise. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the causes are, what matters is the most effective way to combat the problem. The specifics of Tangier's situation are unique, but similar forces are at work undermining traditional communities around the world.

Swift's year on the island was 2016 to 2017, which means he was on hand when islanders voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in his first election. Explicitly political discussions appear only in the final few chapters, but the sources of the residents' conservative views emerge clearly from their perspective on quotidian topics such as fishing licenses. 

The fundamental question at the heart of the story is how or whether to preserve the island and its community. How do we as a society decide what natural and social resources are worth saving? There are just over 400 people living on Tangier Island. Dropping enrollment at the school is as much a threat to their community as the shrinking land. Which is the more important reason to protect the island: the crab fishery or its position on the flyway for migrating birds?