Woman, Captain, Rebel

October 3, 2022
Cultural anthropologist Willson (Seawomen of Iceland) delivers an earnest and admiring biography of pioneering Icelandic fishing captain Thurídur Einarsdóttir (1777–1863). An outlier in her patriarchal oceanside community of Stokkseyri, Thurídur went to sea at age 11 and soon began wearing trousers; not long after, she added her signature short top hat and a “jaunty tailcoat.” By that time, she was known for her “keenly observant eyes and her startling weather-reading ability,” which brought in Stokkseyri’s largest catches. Thurídur became captain of a 10-oared boat and developed a reputation for “looking out for others”: she hired women on her crew, adopted an impoverished niece, and modeled female independence by using the court system to fight for her rights in a culture that defined “wife” as a man’s possession. Famously, her remarkable powers of observation helped solve a robbery when she identified the culprit based on a shoe left at the scene of the crime. (The county commissioner took credit, however.) Throughout, Willson draws from Iceland’s rich storytelling tradition to evoke Thurídur’s intelligence, courage, and “pithy wit” and to describe life in the island’s rural communities. This earthy portrait will win its subject plenty of new fans.