In the Wake of Madness: The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.60 (514 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1565123476 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-08-22 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
She has the good sense to maintain a light touch on the events, and manages a perfect balance between telling the story in an unfussy yet dramatic manner and honoring its complexity.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. "It is probably no coincidence," Druett writes, "that Captain Ahab found disaster in the same empty tropic seas where Captain Norris was killed." New Zealander Druett, a well-known maritime journalist (She Captains; Rough Medicine; etc.), doesn't focus on Norris's death. Druett draws on recently unearthed journals from the voyage to assemble a terrific account of an unusually eventful voyage. From Publishers Weekly Nonfiction accounts about whaling tend to intone Melville's name like a mantra, and Druett's volume about the bedeviled 1841-1845 voyage of the Sharon is no exception. By any measure, the expedition was a catastrophe, with mutiny, desertion and the mid-voyage murder of Capt. Howes Norris by
"The Darker Side of Whaling" according to greenpete. Whaling as romantic adventure has been with us since before Herman Melville put pen to paper. Even today, amidst a reassessment of the brutality of whale killing and its ecological impact, we still maintain a peculiar nostalgia for the days of the sail ship and harpoon. "Moby-Dick" i. ann smith said Great adventure. I very much enjoyed this book for its authentic and masterful retelling of the whaling ship Sharon and her crew. There is insanity and heroism, and ports of call beyond description for their beauty and mysticism. I will recommend to readers of history of nautical adventures.. Bruce Loveitt said Sadist On The High Seas. Joan Druett adds her name to the growing list of authors who have, in the last few years, tackled the topic of seafaring misadventure. We have had several excellent entries in this genre, including Nathaniel Philbrick's "In The Heart Of The Sea" and Mike Dash's "Batavia's Graveyard."
She was a consultant for the award-winning "Seafaring Women" exhibition and has appeared as a guest speaker at maritime museums across the country. She has been the recipient of a PEN/Hubert Church Award, a Fulbright Fellowship, and the John Lyman Award for Best Book of American Maritime History. Native New Zealander JOAN DRUETT is the author of eleven books on maritime history and historical fiction. While much of her research is carried out in the United States, she lives in Welling
Joan Druett, a historian who's been called a female Patrick O'Brian by the Wall Street Journal, dramatically re-creates the mystery of the ill-fated whaleship and reveals a voyage filled with savagery under the command of one of the most ruthless captains to sail the high seas.. When the men in the whaleboats returned, they found four crew members on board, three of whom were covered in blood, the other screaming from atop the mast. After more than a century of silence, the true story of one of history's most notorious mutinies is revealed in Joan Druett's riveting "nautical murder mystery" (USA Today). A year later, while most of the crew was out hunting, Captain Howes Norris was brutally murdered. An American investigation into the murder was never conducted--even when the Sharon returned home three years later, with only four of the original twenty-nine crew on board. On May 25, 1841, the Massachusetts whaleship Sharon set out for the whaling ground of the northwestern Pacific. Single-handedly, the third officer launched a surprise attack to recapture the Sharon, killing two of the attackers and subduing the other