Sailor Girl.

Naomi Brun is a freelance writer and a book reviewer for The Hamilton
Spectator.

Sheree-Lee Olson is an established writer. She became an editor with the Globe and Mail in 1985 and was a Canadian Journalism Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto in 2007–08. She also holds three university degrees, largely financed through her work on Great Lakes freighters.

In Sailor Girl, the protagonist is a hardscrabble 19-year-old photography student from an upper-middle-class conservative family. Kate MacLeod takes a job as a porter on a Great Lakes freighter to earn money to pay for her tuition, and almost immediately takes to the lifestyle. The drinking, the violence, and the opportunity for adventure all suit Kate more than her family’s typical getaways in the Laurentians ever did, and the friendships she develops on the boat become fiercely important to her. She meets attractive but dangerous men, and through a twisted relationship with one of them, she experiences a coming-of-age.

Sheree-Lee Olson is an experienced writer, but Sailor Girl feels so autobiographical that it seems like one of her earlier works. Both the author and the protagonist worked on Great Lakes freighters to pay for their arts education, and both the author and the protagonist have a slightly hard-edged persona. Moreover, Olson has a shining talent for interior monologue, which can easily convince the reader that Olson and MacLeod are indeed the same person.

Sailor Girl is a well-written literary novel that introduces the reader to life on a modern-day working freighter on the Great Lakes. The premise alone makes for an interesting read, and Olson’s vivid descriptions and strong, eloquent voice bring the novel to life.