They used to be poor people's food, just like catfish and crawdads.  But thanks to the miracles of modern transportation and refrigeration, as well as a little all-American marketing, lobster has achieved a place at the top of America's fancy eatin' food pyramid.    In The Secret Life of Lobsters, Trevor Corson reveals many of the mysteries of the tastiest of all crustaceans. 

The story takes place in the 1990s and is approached from two different directions.   Much of the book is spent with the lobstermen, focusing specifically on The Cranberry Isles on the eastern coast of Maine.   The other half is spent with the lobster scientists who are working to understand lobster biology and reproduction.   The two perspectives are woven together rather skillfully, often overlapping at times as the two different groups of workers interact.

Now a journalist, Corson spent many childhood summers on Little Cranberry Island and worked two years on a lobster boat prior to pursuing his writing career.   He used his lobstering connections to obtain much of the access needed to write about the lobstermen and lobsterwomen who make their living harvesting the creatures from the ocean floor.   Given his background, it's not surprising that he writes mostly from the perspective of the lobster trappers and while this bias is evident in his writing, I think that he does a reasonable job of being even handed when discussing the conflicts that arise between the lobstermen and the government regulators.

The lobster industry sections of the book describe the life of a lobsterman in great detail, from the challenges encountered just trying to find the animals, to the dangers of working on the high seas.  It sounds like a pretty brutal way to make a living, but Corson explores some of the romance and art of the endeavor as well.  Like any fishing industry - with such variable effects as biology, weather, ocean currents and chance - there are rather profound and often inexplicable booms and busts from year to year and Corson writes about the effect that this turmoil can have on the families involved.   But most of this part of the book discusses the efforts made to avoid overfishing.   Is the lobster harvest sustainable?   The demise of the local cod fishing industry has served as warning to the lobstermen that too much of a good thing may not last.   Corson describes the efforts by both the lobstermen and the government - sometimes in collaboration, mostly in conflict - to try and determine how much trapping is too much.   I was surprised to learn that most trapped lobsters are thrown back, being too small or too big, but rarely just right.   While at times I had difficulty following the dozens of different individual stories in these sections, I found it both interesting and informative.  

The scientific sections of the book - my favorite parts - revolve around the idea of the Umwelt, the holy grail of animal behavior.   Conceptualized by Estonian zoologist Jakob von Uexküll (1864-1944), the Umwelt refers to each organism's subjective world view - specifically in this context, what is it like to experience the world as a lobster?   The overarching goal of the scientists profiled in this book is to learn enough about the neurological system and sensory environment of the lobster to be able to comprehend the lobster's Umwelt.    Some animals are easy.  Those whose primary orientation is visual and auditory, like most primates, cats or many birds of prey are relatively comprehensible from a human perspective.   Other vertebrates can be more difficult: the dog's olfactory universe, the bat's ultrasonic world or the shark's electrical sensations can all be pretty hard for the human mind to understand.    The lobster is an even more difficult, living in a primarily olfactory and tactile world and working with sensory organs that are virtually alien, it's quite a challenge to see the ocean floor from a large crustacean's point of view.   But despite the obstacles, the lobster researchers accumulate enough data and understanding to begin to approach this goal, exploring the lobster's world in laboratories, submarines, scuba gear or by just digging in the mud on the shore.  I enjoyed Corson's description of the unrelenting efforts and amazing creativity displayed by these individuals, often writing with geeky humor - one example being his description of how lobsters urinate from their faces to communicate with their neighbors.

"The dominant male waited in his shelter, peeing out the door of his apartment at the females who came calling.   A female would poke her head in and pee back at her prospective mate, a love potion in her urine suppressing his bellicosity and putting him in the mood for courtship.  He would stand on tip-toe and pulse his swimmerets, drawing her urine in and fanning it appreciatively about the boudoir."

Near the end Corson does address the ethical issues involved in dropping a living, intriguing and somewhat intelligent creature face down into a pot of boiling water in order to provide a meal for a hungry human.   While he's no vegetarian, he does make a reasonable argument that eating lobster is no more or less humane than eating any other animal species. 

Despite the fact that reading this almost 300 page book often made me quite hungry, I found The Secret Life of Lobsters to be thoroughly enjoyable.   The combination of fascinating biology, interesting sociology and a facile and cohesive writing style made for an informative and entertaining journey.   Lobster dinner will never be quite the same. 

Recommended: Yes