AGAINST THE TIDE: THE FATE OF THE NEW ENGLAND FISHERMAN, by Richard Adams Carey, Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1999, 364 pages, hardcover, $23.

Anyone who listens to the news can’t miss the stream of reports on the steadily changing commercial fishing regulations. Richard Adams Carey explores these changes and their effects on fishermen in his new book, “Against the Tide: The Fate of the New England Fisherman.” The title alone will lead readers to think this is no happy-go-lucky tale of landing the big one, and indeed it is not. Despite the romantic image of fishing, Carey does not wax sentimental as he details the harsh realities of brutal work with few rewards.

Carey spent a year working with four fishermen and he chronicles the challenges all fishermen face against weather, fatigue, and conflicts with governmental regulators as well as other fishermen. Operating on several levels, Carey gives readers a wide-ranging view of the fishing industry. His prose is direct and thoughtful, at times even wistful; and Carey complements his tale by delving into the history of lobstering in Maine and other commercial fishing endeavors throughout New England, describing weather along the coast and on some of the offshore banks, and exploring the biologies of several species, such as the lobster and the cod.

Carey deftly chronicles the conflicts among fishermen, scientists and government regulators, using lobstering in the Gulf of Maine as an example. Fishermen claim the lobster is not in danger because overall annual catches are higher than ever. Yet marine biologists assert this is a result of the sheer numbers of lobstermen working the coast and point to the evidence that individual catches are smaller, as is the average size of the lobsters being caught. It’s a battle in which no side wants to give ground.

From firsthand experience, he describes the gamut of feelings: from fear and worry to exhilaration, from disappointment to absolute rage, from fatigue to sheer terror, that fishermen face day to day. He returns again and again to the idea of paranoia that every fisherman feels: the feeling that everyone is out to get you, and he makes it painfully clear that now, with dwindling fish stocks, tightening government regulations, hypocritical environmentalists and competing fishermen, it’s no wonder paranoia runs rampant through the fishing fleet.

An excellent pairing of narrative information with a well-told story makes “Against the Tide” a memorable book. But it is in no way a light read. Carey brings the reader face to face with a way of life that is rapidly changing and may soon be gone.

Though Carey worked with only four fishermen, their stories could well apply to any fisherman struggling to make a life along the New England coast. Will the once seemingly endless stocks of lobster, cod, haddock, redfish and scallops recover? Will the family fisherman survive or go the way of the family farmer, replaced by vast corporate-owned floating fish processors?

In the end, there are no easy answers. And Carey doesn’t presume to offer any. Instead, he offers a glimpse of hope: “Crewmen on the New Bedford-based dragger `Atlantic Star’ were astonished to find a golden haddock in their nets. … Older fishermen interpret a golden haddock as a sign of good times to come, of prosperity and plentiful catches. It takes no more than that. From such small synchronies of beauty and fortuity, hope breathes like a freshening breeze across the slips and moorings of another generation of voyagers.”