Port City

Port City, Eliot Sefrin's new novel, brings the working class history of New York's tugboat men to the page in a story of power, greed, and the struggle for compromise. The harbor itself becomes a character as Sefrin paints a picture of a city that has just reached its postwar maturity - wealthy, vital, and the hub of global trade. In the joyful days after the end of the second World War, those who have been holding their breath and hoping for better pay are ready for a change that is not coming without a fight. Soon the union representing the tugboat workers is locked in a stalled negotiation with the tugboat owners that threatens to cripple the thriving city. The story of how this historical moment finds an end is a love letter to a city whose throbbing heart is the people who live within it.