REVIEWS
"Riordan is a superb storyteller, and The North Line is an all-engrossing, never-dull depiction of Alaska’s ‘wild west’ and those drawn to it. Sentence by sentence, Riordan’s dazzling language will transport readers into a world both challenging and packed with beauty and possibility."
Anchorage Daily News
"[A]n irresistible portrait of commercial fishermen fighting for survival in early 1990s Alaska. […] The novel’s colorful dialogue and relentless pacing evoke the uncompromising headwinds in [the main character’s] path. This is a triumph of gritty realism."
Publishers Weekly (Starred)
"Riordan writes about both labor and the natural world with an equally keen eye, bringing out the inner torment of a complex character coming to terms with his place in the world"
CrimeReads, a Best Debut pick
"“The North Line is a ruggedly erudite story that combines the best of the individualism of Jack London with the introspective ruminations of Raymond Carver . . . not to be missed."
S.A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed
"A frightening story of tough men pushed to the brink. The novel is captivating, occasionally funny, and startling. I couldn’t put it down."
David Sedaris
“The North Line is one of those rare books that you feel as much as read. The world and its details are so real, so intimate, and so lived-in and that I had to check my fingertips for fish scales once I finished reading”
Craig Davidson, author of Rust and Bone
"Riordan is summoning demons in this grimy wilderness saga that might hit entirely too close to home for those who know. Magnificent"
Laird Barron, author of The Wind Began to Howl
“In the midst of this ruthless, fast-learning world, Adam will reveal his deepest self. Violence, speed, coke, and salt water: in an atmosphere worthy of a Jack London rock’n’roll, Matt Riordan has written a ruthless coming-of-age novel that leaves you breathless..”
ROLLING STONE
“This bildungsroman, with its immersive, tense writing, tells the story of lives shaped by the swell and is reminiscent of the cod-fishing seasons in Newfoundland. The atmosphere is raw and visceral, with sticky scales, scarlet entrails, drugs, wounds and exhaustion. Fishing in the far north changes a man. A real favourite!”
L’ÉCHO
"No doubt extrapolating from memories of his youth, Matt Riordan, a former lawyer, delivers a breathless novel, harsh and tense, with hard-hitting dialogue, where beer, coffee and cocaine test the nerves of crews ready to do anything to bring in fish. Alas, even to the point of betraying one’s friendship and losing one’s soul... A coming-of-age novel like a dive into hell, as scathing for those who fish as for those who are fished. » – Le Chasse-Marée"
LE CHASSE-MARÉE
“It’s a novel that smells of the sea, of mustiness and fuel oil. There’s no reverie here, the horizon seems blocked, but you’re instantly immersed in this sticky, rough world: that of fishing in the Bering Sea. (...) There’s an atmosphere here that can’t be invented. When you close the book, you breathe again, relieved to be warm and tidy in your living room. A dirty, dark, immersive novel.”
VOILE MAGAZINE
“TThere’s something of Kipling’s Captain Courageous in this novel (...). The job is dangerous, and the fellow sailors are rough, brutal, and ruthless. As for the sea, it makes a mockery of pretence. Although it is fiction, this book is a powerful and realistic immersion in the world of fishing..”
MOTEUR BOAT MAGAZINE
"Matt Riordan’s The North Line is a rough, virile, and exciting novel. In one fishing season, he hopes to earn the $26,500 needed to enrol in a university in his native East. This would allow him to get on with his life, since he had been deprived of a scholarship because of his activities as a drug dealer. During this interlude, Adam joins up with
the experienced Nash and Cole as deckhands on a raft belonging to the fleet of the dreaded Kaid. In this gritty, realistic story, Matt Riordan explores the rugged world of seafaring workers who, as Nash puts it, are there ‘to kill fish and make money’. The elements are omnipresent, and the cold, stormy Bering Sea is ready to engulf any unfortunate person who is swept overboard. The only thing that counts is yield. When the holds are full, when the deck is overflowing with herrings piled up to the knees of the crew, the boat moors next to a collector who sucks up the manna. The sailors want to get back to the banks as quickly as possible, before the authorities that control the resource decide to ban fishing of a particular species. There’s not a pound of sea-sprayed romanticism in this uncompromising tale. The fish impregnates man with its smell, and its scales stick to the skin. The crew slipped in the mucus and viscera that covered the deck. On board, the coffee tastes of diesel, and the food is inedible. As for the toilets, they consist of a bucket on the deck. In short, this novel is also totally organic. It reeks of fish, dampness, and sweat. For Adam, the initiation is painful, because he is sailing on the Vice and it is not Eden. In the course of operations and manoeuvres, he gets nails pulled out, black eyes, and broken teeth. And everyone’s getting by on spliff, cocaine, speed, and the hope, at least for Adam and Cole, of earning enough to turn their lives around. For the salmon campaign, Kaiden sends Nash to another boat and joins Adam and Cole on the Nerka (the name for the sockeye salmon). Kaid also lives up to his name. He’s a boss and
he’s a bear, an authority that brooks no challenge. In his omnipotence, Kaid is a cheat, strong, instinctive, and driven by money. So he decides to go and set nets while the others go on strike for better-paid fishing. As well as the sea, he and his men are going to come up against their rivals... Until a spectacular reversal of the balance of power between the boss and the sailor brings this thrilling narrative, full of twists and turns, to a surprisingly open ending. This debut novel, which is also packed with capitalism, unabashedly describes fishing as an industrial activity of predation. It stands firm thanks to its strong identity, which is partly based on the experience of the author, who followed the opposite path to his hero: he first set sail for commercial fishing in this region before going to law school to become a lawyer in New York; he has since left the bar to settle in Australia and write. No doubt it was the right move!."
LA TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE