This book's topic is tough. The men were tough. The subject is also tough. It was an awful loss to Montauk, and it is a fitting tribute to the loss of life represented by the tragic loss of this crew. That being said, I found it difficult to work my way through the material. The style of writing is more that of memoir than a relating of the events surrounding the tragedy. Unfortunately, while the content is rich, the level of detail almost detracts from the story itself. For people closely connected to the events, this is a great method to find closure, but as an outsider, the telling felt almost voyeuristic. If that's what you like to read, you will find this a compelling read.

I appreciate the opportunity to read this book, and while the subject matter is of interest I did not connect with the way the story was told. It was long and drawn out, unorganized, and too much fluff/unnecessary details was added to the narrative for my taste.

I'm the wrong reader for this book, and it may appeal to other readers more than me, so I will not be reviewing it on social media.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book.
Such an interesting read about real people in a real town that suffered a real tragedy.
Fascinating tale about the evolution of Long Island. I had to push to get through parts of it. Told in a nonlinear fashion which was fine until it became jumbled and confusing. Repetitious with unnecessary information. Still enjoyed it but would like to see a good rewrite.

There are so many moments in history that are big when they happen, but maybe don't remain on the public mind and don't get passed down beyond the family members that the moment impacts and this is one of them. A commercial fishing boat goes down in a horrible storm off the coast of Montauk, NY and with it all four aboard go missing. This book recounts as many details as possible while also going back in time to share the past of these four men and how they came to be together on this boat and where their family members are now, all still dealing in one way or another with their passing.

The contents of this book were so good, but I didn't love how it was put together. I loved how the author started with the tragedy and some details behind the boat and the situation and then dove into each man, but within the sections of the men the stories felt jumbled and confusing. By the end of the book, I felt as though I knew each of them really well and appreciated all the information in the book, just would have moved some things around to make for an easier reading experience.

I hope that this author has another one up her sleeve, would love to see her tackle another moment in history and go into a deep dive into another.

Lost Boys of Montauk is the untold story of a small crew of fishermen who disappear in a storm in New York in the 80's.

I want to be careful reviewing this book because it's a true story about real people. It's a tragedy that men hard at work were lost at sea, leaving families behind.

But I dnf'ed this book. I made it 40%, and it was so much work to read, to follow, and wonder what is the point of this story? It's told out of order: the event summarized, the setting explained in painstaking detail, then each of the men getting a chapter with back story and the even summarized again, with the author's personal life sprinkled in.

It's presented like a great mystery, but it's sadly mostly straightforward. There was a storm. The men aboard were unsurprisingly adrenaline chasers and hard working, not wanting to lose a day fishing on the ocean they loved. Again, this event was a tragedy and their stories can and should be told, but this book is a trudge to read.

I wish I could separate it into pieces and shake it into order, cut out half the unnecessary detail, and slim out the back stories. It's so long.

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for a copy for me to review.

The Lost Boys of Montauk chronicles the loss of four watermen and the impact it had on not just their families but the entire Montauk community.

Ms. Fairbanks’ research is evident throughout her book. She left no stone unturned in the details of each of the men lost and of their immediate family members. There were times when I appreciated the insight, but at other points in the book, the detail felt intrusive.

This is not another version of The Perfect Storm, but more of a memoir of each of the watermen lost on the Wind Blown when a sudden and massive storm hit while they were at sea. Additionally, readers get the sordid details of their families’ lives before and after the incident.

I found the subject interesting, but I found the layout to be a bit choppy. . The nonlinear timeline of the story did not work for me; not each character is visited before and after the incident. I appreciated the information about the life of commercial fishermen as well as the impact the loss of the four men had on their community.

I don't generally bother reading books that tell the story of men but I'm glad I picked up this one. It tells the story and aftermath of a ship sinking off the coast of a small town. It is nonfiction but it moved at a brisk pace and at first I was confused and thought it was fiction. It is very readable and provides a glimpse into a way of life I normally wouldn't know much about.

4.75 stars / This review will be posted at BookwormishMe.com today.

In March 1984 a fishing boat went down in the Atlantic during a storm. No, not the Andrea Gail, the F/V known as the Wind Blown. With four fishermen on board, no mayday was sounded, no distress calls, no known location. All that is known is that the Wind Blown was out in that storm and neither the boat nor fishermen ever returned home.

But it’s more than just a story about a downed vessel. Fairbanks does a journalist’s job of going deep into the story to share the lives of the four men on board - Mike Stedman, the captain; Dave Connick, Michael Vigilant and Scott Clarke - the three mates. She shares how their worlds collided on a dock in Montauk and how the people left behind have survived this tragedy.

Fairbanks ability to sort through the fluff, which is all most survivors want to share about deceased friends and family members, and get down to the nitty gritty, the not so pretty stuff. In the end, we know more about how these four ended up at the bottom of the sea, and the trauma left behind by their loss.

This is a compelling novel. Sharing the stories of these families is important to their future generations and the fishing community that they not be forgotten. Well written and researched, it is a book that will be enjoyed by fans of real life drama.

The Lost Boys of Montauk is a true story of the lives of four four men that love the water and set out to fish when a n unexpected nor’easter hits and they disappear. The book tells about the town of Montauk, NY and it growth and about the families of each of these four boys. The love of water was an overwhelming pull for each of these boys and how they couldn’t stay away from it whether surfing or fishing.
The Lost Boys of Montauk is non-fiction but reads like a fiction book. The boys become your neighbors and their families loss becomes yours.
Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for a preview copy. I look forward to more great reads by this author.
#Netgalley #Gallery Books

I loved this book. I read it in a snap because Fairbanks described the individuals related to the story vividly. Before A PERFECT STORM, there was a nor’easter in 1984, which sunk a ship with four young commercial fishermen. She begins by describing the storm and probable events leading to the ship sinking. The middle unspools all the of the fisherman’s histories and family dynamics. It ends with all the reverberations and impacts the survivors faced immediately after the tragedy and many years later. I like ocean/fisherman stories so this really fulfilled that for me. There were some moments when I was tired of reading about *another* family member’s whole history - however, she always found an interesting thread/connection. Highly recommend if you tend to like nonfiction.

THE LOST BOYS OF MONTAUK is best described by the subtitle: THE TRUE STORY OF THE WIND BLOWN, FOUR MEN WHO VANISHED AT SEA AND THE SURVIVORS THEY LEFT BEHIND.
On a cold March day in 1984, Mike Stedman and his crew of three set out on the Wind Blown to catch tile fish. While out at sea a storm came up quickly and the Wind Blown was its’ victim. Despite a lengthy search after the storm had passed no survivors from the Wind Blown were ever found.
Men lost at sea are remembered by those they leave behind.
When journalist Amanda Fairbanks moved into the area she became intrigued by the story of the Wind Blown. She is able to talk to Mary Stedman who is Mike’s widow and other family members and friends. While no new information about the tragedy itself came to light, Amanda Fairbanks was able to tell the story as seen from the point of view of the people left behind.
I found THE LOST BOYS OF MONTAUK to be an interesting read. I wasn’t aware of this event before I read the book. One of the best aspects of reading an account like THE LOST BOYS OF MONTAUK is the amount of knowledge you take away from the book.
I learned about the hardships of commercial fishing, tile fish and life on Long Island.
Also I gained an understanding of the passion these men felt about the sea.
I think Amanda Fairbanks told the story with compassion and honesty.
Thank you to Gallery Books for providing an advanced e-edition of THE LOST BOYS OF MONTAUK.

Very powerful and extremely well written. A non-fiction that was easy to comprehend and kept me interested throughout.

This one didn't do it for me.

I wanted to like this one. I feel bad that 4 men lost their lives and were never found and their family still mourns them. The author is trying to keep these men alive even just in memory with her book and that is commendable.

However, there were frequently too many TMIs, and maybe I'm not a man so maybe they're wired differently, but personally if I had died I would not want someone writing about the age I lost my virginity and having sex on my period.

The book is super disjointed. The first part is called "before", but jumps around in time even in that section, and then does 2 of the men, then after, then more of the men and its just so all over the place that I could feel my eyes glazing over.

Just not for me.

2.5 stars! The publisher was nice enough to reach out to me with a free copy of this book. The author definitely did a lot of research into the various histories of the families involved but I didn’t feel like I got to know the four men themselves enough. It was a little too long and drawn out as well.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Lost Boys of Montauk by Amanda M. Fairbanks.

This is a true story of four men from different walks of life but for a similar interest, commercial fishing. But bad cards were in their fate when they went missing in 1984 by a violent storm, never to be seen again.

In this book, Fairbanks takes a deep dive (ha, see what I did there) into the lives of these four fisherman, how they came to find each other, and how they all ended up on the boat that would eventually lead them to their end. Her story telling is so compelling, and her reporting was aggressive, sometimes to the point of alienation. Excellently done.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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An immersive account of a tragedy at sea whose repercussions haunt its survivors to this day, lauded by New York Times bestselling author Ron Suskind as “an honest and touching book, and a hell of a story.”

In March of 1984, the commercial fishing boat Wind Blown left Montauk Harbor on what should have been a routine offshore voyage. Its captain, a married father of three young boys, was the boat’s owner and leader of the four-man crew, which included two locals and the blue-blooded son of a well-to-do summer family. After a week at sea, the weather suddenly turned, and the foursome collided with a nor’easter. They soon found themselves in the fight of their lives. Tragically, it was a fight they lost. Neither the boat nor the bodies of the men were ever recovered.

The fate of the Wind Blown—the second-worst nautical disaster suffered by a Montauk-based fishing vessel in over a hundred years—has become interwoven with the local folklore of the East End’s year-round population. Back then, on the easternmost tip of Long Island, before Wall Street and hedge fund money stormed into town, commercial fishing was the area’s economic lifeblood.

Amanda M. Fairbanks examines the profound shift of Montauk from a working-class village—“a drinking town with a fishing problem”—to a playground for the ultra-wealthy, seeking out the reasons that an event more than three decades old remains so startlingly vivid in people’s minds. She explores the ways in which deep, lasting grief can alter people’s memories. And she shines a light on the powerful and sometimes painful dynamics between fathers and sons, as well as the secrets that can haunt families from beyond the grave.

The story itself is a universal tale of family and brotherhood; it’s about what happens when the dreams and ambitions of affluent and working-class families collide. Captivating and powerful, The Lost Boys of Montauk explores one of the most important questions we face as humans: how do memories of the dead inform the lives of those left behind?
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When I was a child, my mom and my aunt took me and my sister and cousin to Montauk to see the lighthouse. And I think I remember there being a huge balanced rock there. As a child in Texas, I traveled with my mom and sister to Long Island each summer to visit family, and we spent time on the beaches of Long Island and sometimes crabbed or fished her waters. So when this booked showed up as available, my interest was piqued. I was eight years old when the Wind Blown went down, so I don't remember it happening. However, often I dream of those days on the beach or on the docks...so I do understand the draw of the sea.

The men who were lost on the Wind Blown had the sea running through their veins. They did not go out that day expecting not to come back. But every day they went out was a day they knew they might not return. Such is the risk when you turn your fate over to the gods of the sea. This book tells us their stories before that fateful day and the stories of those they left behind. It also tells us the story of old Montauk as juxtaposed against the playground of the rich and famous that exists today. It's a well-written account of a tragedy that maybe could have been avoided at several points, but instead circumstances came together to lead to the loss of the Wind Blown.

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Storygraph!

Thank you for the opportunity to review The Lost Boys of Montauk by Amanda Fairbanks. I haven't had the opportunity to review anything else by this author and it's not my usual genre, but the description was compelling. I'm really glad that I requested (and read) this work. It's engrossing, intriguing, and endlessly interesting. If you're on the fence, then hop off and start reading. Absolutely worth your time.

2 star
The Lost Boys of Montauk
by Amanda M. Fairbanks
This is supposed to be the story of the lost ship Windblown and the men who lost their lives. However, this is more a story of those left behind and their lives than those who died.
This is a strange yet interesting book The author clearly put in a lot of time and research into the book but so much of this book is pure fluff. Fairbanks also has some very strange beliefs that keep creeping in the book for no real reason.
The Lost Boys of Montauk is exceedingly long-winded especially for a book with no real ending.
I recommend skipping this book entirely.
 I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and Netgalley.

The Lost Boys of Montauk is gripping and reads like a work of fiction.
The four men crew of the ‘Wind Blown’ set sail in March 1984 on a routine fishing expedition. Hitting unexpected weather one week out, the ‘Wind Blown’ met the wrath of a nor’ easter that was valiantly fought but tragically lost.
The men, the boat and those left behind never recovered.
Amanda Fairbanks delivers this story with care, poignancy and the sense of personal investment in this community; the locals, surfers, fisherman, their loved ones and family. She details the risks of deep sea fishing, the struggles to support oneself and their family and the lives forever affected by this tragedy.
The contrast between the Montauk summer people’s status and those working tirelessly to make ends meet is vast. I became enmeshed with each resident and can easily see the authors dedication to telling their story.
I highly recommend this book and it is one the reader will not soon forget.
Thank you NetGalley, Amanda Fairbanks and Gallery Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review.