Titanic Disaster - Awesome Read!

Leviathan’s Master
By: David M. Quinn
Published By: iUniverse
ISBN: 978-1-4401-5535-2

Sometimes good things come in small packages. That’s the case with Leviathan’s Master, by David M. Quinn. It’s not much over 100 pages long, and that’s including the bibliography, but like a short John Steinbeck or Hemingway book – the length doesn’t matter – it’s the quality and rich narrative of it that counts. Leviathan’s Master is the fictional account of what happened to the author’s relative, Captain George W. Dow. He was the uncle of the author’s grandfather, and was the captain of the world’s largest sailing ship, the seven-masted Thomas W. Lawson, on the ship’s fateful and storm-plagued voyage towards London. Much of the account is based on Dow’s own words and recollections, so his telling of the wreck of the ship seems to speak to the heart. The many black-and-white photos throughout the book of Captain Dow; Captain Cook, who attempted to sway Dow into abandoning the ship sooner; the area where the Thomas W. Lawson sank; and cabins of the ship itself, also add a nice touch, and are the proverbial icing on the cake.

The story is told mostly as a first-person, first-hand narrative by Captain George W. Dow to people around him as he recuperates on St. Agnes Island from injuries he suffered in the wreck. He’s nursed back to health by Charlotte Hicks, the wife of Israel Hicks. Israel and several of his relatives were members of the “Royal National Lifeboat Institution in whose service the men of St. Agnes are frequently volunteered,” as another Hicks, Freddie Church Hicks, relates to Captain Dow later in the book.Israel, Freddie, and other men were the ones who went out in lifeboats to look for any survivors, and they rescued Dow and the ship’s engineer, Mr. Edward Rowe, from a rocky, jagged piece tiny island called Hellsweather Carn.

The way David M. Quinn constructs the book is largely to have Captain Dow relate details of his life and the events leading up to and including the shipwreck through other people asking him questions, and getting him to tell them what happened. For instance, as he recuperates in bed from a broken wrist and ribs, Charlotte is busy cleaning his room, “her arms fully laden with the implements of the war on dust and dirt.” Dow starts talking to her about his wife, Jenny, how they met, their children, and how his going away to sea put a big strain on their marriage.

Then, in Chapter Four, Captain Dow has a new arrival to tell his story to – a man whose name is Francis Dagenham, and is “a correspondent from the Times of London.” He wants to do a piece in the paper about “the circumstances of your voyage…and its tragic end.” Dow is reluctant at first to talk to the reporter, but when Dagenham offers him some of his whiskey he takes out of his valise, Captain Dow becomes more at ease and relaxed and cooperates with answering Dagenham’s questions. The author uses the device of having Dow relate the tale through the questions of others very effectively, and expresses a lot of information in a very efficient manner by writing Leviathan’s Master this way.

You can probably guess that the most exciting and tragic part of the book is when Captain Dow describes the three back-to-back storms he and his crew faced that led up to the anchor chains snapping on the Thomas W. Lawson, and trying to survive in the icy waters of the ocean while he could see and hear men dying all around him. Also, reading about how Captain Dow can’t help but feel guilty, as he was the ship’s captain, and how he handled these feelings was interesting to read.

If you like to read fascinating true-life accounts of survival in the face of all odds, then Leviathan’s Master is a book you’ll love to read. Quinn’s first work of historical fiction was entitled It May Be Forever: An Irish Rebel on the American Frontier, and was about the life of another relative of his, his “paternal great-great-uncle, Michael Quinn.” It’s also a book well worth checking out. Leviathan’s Master was a Best Books Award Finalist. One can only hope that Quinn has more intriguing relatives to write about, and can do so as skillfully and suspensefully as he did with Leviathan’s Master. I’m looking forward to reading more from this talented author in the future.

Titanic Disaster - Awesome Read!