We Finally Learn to Shuck Oysters

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Kaitlyn: I’ve never been jealous of seafaring people, but I did go through a pretty intense nautical phase when I was 21 and got a hold of Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News. I read most of it while lying on my back on Valentino Pier in Red Hook, and for a while I thought it might be my destiny to start a newspaper about boats. My destiny is still unfolding, so we’ll see. (But I now doubt it.)

Red Hook is, of course, the site of some important and also of an IKEA. It is quiet and creepy and “a watery place,” like the fictional town of Killick-Claw, where the protagonist of gets a job at a newspaper about boats (and grisly car accidents) and thereby comes into his own after decades of indecision and fear of self-knowledge. Also like the fictional town of Killick-Claw, there are a lot of places where you can buy fried seafood, and far fewer where you can avail yourself of public transportation.