About the Book
1742: A ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washes up on the coast of Brazil. Inside are thirty emaciated men, barely alive. Survivors from the Wager, a British vessel wrecked while on a secret mission to raid a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, they have an extraordinary tale to tell.
Six months later, an even more decrepit boat comes ashore on the coast of Chile, containing just three castaways with their own, very different account of what happened. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil, they maintain, were not heroes – they were mutineers.
As accusations of treachery and murder fly, who is telling the truth? The stakes are life-and-death – for whoever is guilty could hang.
Format: Paperback (368 pages) Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 18th April 2023 Genre: Nonfiction, History
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My Review
This was a book club pick and a rare non-fiction read for me. I really enjoyed it, as did the majority of my fellow readers. It’s a thrilling story of endurance and the will to survive with, it has to be said, some harrowing scenes in parts. It’s also a thought-provoking exploration of human behaviour under extreme circumstances.
The author’s meticulous research is obvious; you only have to look at the extensive notes and bibliography which make up nearly one hundred pages of the book to see that. Although the book is overflowing with maritime facts, including the origin of some commonly used phrases, it’s not a dry read. For example, this description of the toll on the Wager‘s structure of the rough seas they encounter: ‘Every day she was being devoured… She was pelted and gouged. She pitched, she heaved, she groaned, she splintered.’ Or this, when the ship is finally pitched onto the rocks of what will come to be known as Wager Island: ‘The bowsprit cleaved, windows burst, treenails popped, planks shattered, cabins collapsed, decks caved in.’
It has to be said that on the voyage the Wager’s crew experienced just about everything nature could throw at them as well as outbreaks of typhus and scurvy that cut a deadly swathe over the ship’s crew. I actually found it surprising that anyone survived the voyage, let along the shipwreck and the period as castaways on an island that provided very little in the way of food or shelter. Only salvaging items from the Wager ensured their survival and, at a crucial moment, assistance from an indigenous tribe much better suited to their environment than the crew.
One other thing that surprised me was the extent of the contemporaneous documents that survived, including the journals kept by sixteen year old midshipman John Byron (grandfather of the poet Lord Byron) and gunner, John Bulkeley.
The Wager is a story based on fact. If it wasn’t the author might have been tempted to create a more exciting ending but he stuck rigidly to the actual events which reveal something of a cover-up by those in power who didn’t care to advertise the breakdown of naval discipline or the parlous state of the country’s fleet.
By way of an afterword, Martin Scorcese (who brought to the screen David Grann’s previous book, Killers of the Flower Moon) and Leonard DiCaprio have acquired the screen rights to The Wager.
In three words: Well-researched, detailed, authentic
Try something similar: Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin
About the Author
David Grann is the author of the international bestsellers Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z. Killers of the Flower Moon was a finalist for The National Book Award and won an Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is also the author of The White Darkness and the collection The Devil and Sherlock Holmes. Grann’s investigative reporting has garnered several honours, including a George Polk Award. He lives with his wife and children in New York. (Photo: Goodreads author page)
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