The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan: A Review

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Survival in a lifeboat may sound like a simple plot line, but it astounds in the hands of debut novelist, Charlotte Rogan. In The Lifeboat Grace Winter, age 22, sails from Europe to America with her new husband in order to meet her new mother-in-law. After an explosion on luxury liner, the Empress Alexandra, Grace's husband Henry secures her a place on a lifeboat. She survives three weeks in the overcrowded lifeboat. Upon rescue, she finds herself on trial for murder-another form of survival.

1914. Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Seaman John Hardie takes charge on Lifeboat 14. His maritime experience enables him to adjust to changes in their circumstances. It also gives him the grit to put a boot in the face of a lost soul trying to climb aboard the already dangerously full lifeboat. When he is not giving orders, he remains aloof or expounds on scientific maritime facts and lore.

In this tiny boat adrift in a boundless ocean, the author examines whether murder justifies survival. The owners of mother ship, the Empress Alexandra, saved money by building lifeboats to hold only eighty percent of their intended capacity. "Capacity 40 persons" says the plaque on Grace's lifeboat now holding 39 people. Something or someone must give.

Told in the first person by Grace, the survivors' ordeals and fates are reveled in a series of flashbacks. Lifeboat duties are assigned. Stories told to pass the time become untruths as people "whisper down the lane." We learn Grace's constantly changing opinions of other passengers and assessment of their fate. She fills in back story about her relationship with Henry. She is "in the middle of a nothingness that was everything, or everything that mattered." Conditions worsen. Camaraderie veers toward suspicion. Surprising rivalries and alliances develop. Deprivation and emotional decay further weaken any hope for the survivors.

We learn early on that Grace has been married for ten weeks. Did Henry pay for her inclusion in the rescue? What does she know of her husband's fate? Can Grace come through this experience with her innate belief in man's goodness intact?

A Princeton graduate, author Charlotte Rogan lives in Westport, Connecticut. She spent her childhood surrounded by sailors. In the book's trailer, Rogan relates her interest in writing the story was perked upon perusing old legal texts. There she found the story of two drowning soldiers floating on a plank that can only support one. The case examined whether or not it was murder for one to push the other off if the plank would only hold one man. Little, Brown and Company recently released The Lifeboat. It is being translated into eighteen languages.

Rogan's rich debut novel,The Lifeboat, interlaces many layers of petty jealousies, shrouded motives, moral dilemmas, and psychological complexities. What are the boundaries of human civility? How humane are we when pushed to the brink?

Article originally published by Holly Weiss on http://www.blogcritics.org/.

Holly Weiss is the author of a historical fiction novel, Crestmont, writer and reviewer of newly-released books. http://www.hollyweiss.com/.

Free reprint of article if entire bio is intact.

History's Unforeseen Consequences - Fools Of Fortune by William Trevor

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Generally, genre thrillers are books without thrills. Someone gets killed. Turn the page and it happens again to someone else. There's a chase, a near miss; da capo al fine; repeat. There are never consequences. Characters seem to exist - they never come to life - in an eternal present devoid of either thought or reflection. Plot is a series of events, while characters are mere fashionably dressed acts. William Trevor's beautiful novel, Fools Of Fortune is, in many ways, a whodunit - or better who done what - thriller. But it transcends genre because it is the consequences of the actions and their motives that feature large, that provide plot and ultimately a credible, if tragic humanity.

Fools Of Fortune is a novel that presents tragedy not merely as a vehicle for portraying raw emotion, but rather as a means of illustrating the depth of ensuing consequence, both historical and personal. In conflict it is easy to list events, quote numbers, suggest outcome, but it is rare to have a feel of how momentous events can have life-long consequences for those involved, consequences that even protagonists cannot envisage, consequences that can affect the lives of those not even involved.

William Trevor's book is set in Ireland. Its story spans decades, but the crucial elements of the plot are placed inn the second decade of the twentieth century. They do involve the First World War, but really as a sideshow to the issue of Home Rule for Ireland. The Quinton family are Protestants living in an old house called Kinleagh in County Cork. Willie Quinton is a child, initially home schooled by a priest called Kilgarriff, who has a highly personal view of the world. We see many of the events through Willie's child eyes, including a surreptitious meeting between Willie's father and a famous man who visits on a motorbike.

The family owns a flour mill. They are quite well off, a fact that is clearly appreciated by some and resented by others. Crucially, it is this availability of finance that leads to a downfall, events that lead to deaths, destruction and calls for revenge. Willie's life is transformed for ever.

Over the water, the Woodcombes of Woodcombe Park, Dorset, have a daughter called Marianne. The Woodcombes and the Quintons are related. Marianne is Willie's cousin.

On a visit to Kinleagh she falls in love with Willie. She is a small, delicate girl. She has experience of a Swiss finishing school, a stay that brings exposure to practices that are not wholly educational. Marianne returns to Kinleagh to find Willie. She has important news, but finds that devastation has hit the Quinton household, a culmination of events beyond the control of any individual. No-one wants to talk about what might have happened, and no-one admits to the whereabouts of Willie. Marianne stays to wait for his return. It proves to be a long wait.

There is vengeance in the air, and unforeseen consequences for a child who apparently played no part in any of the events. She was blameless, a mere recipient of the consequences of others' actions, of others' grief.

William Trevor tells the tale of Fools Of Fortune as serial memoirs of those involved, primarily Willie and Marianne. Some of the school experiences that form a significant part of the story are comic, and offer some relief to the pressure of unfolding tragedy. But central to the book's non-linear discovery of motive and consequence is the fact that events can dictate the content of lives, and sometimes individuals appear as no more than powerless pawns in games dictated by others. We are all participants, but not always on our own terms.

Philip Spires
Author of Mission and A Fool's Knot, African novels set in Kenya
http://www.philipspires.co.uk/
Migwani is a small town in Kitui District, eastern Kenya. My books examine how social and economic change impact on the lives of ordinary people. They portray characters whose identity is bound up with their home area, but whose futures are determined by the globalized world in which they live.

Novel Peers Into The 2020 Presidential Elections: A Harbinger of Possible Future Reform in America

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Some Americans have always been turned off by American politicians who seem so out of touch with the mass of citizens. Many were added to those discontents during the congressional gridlock battles over health care and budget deficits. And more recently a new class of disenchanted were added to the list because of the extreme negative campaigning experienced in the 2012 Republican primaries.

If you fit into any of these groups have you ever wondered what can be done to improve our political system and elevate our democracy to a more civil level? Author Jim Lynch pondered these desires and put them in writing in a novel entitled The 2020 Players: A Futuristic Account of the 2020 Presidential Election Year.

The 2020 Players is a futuristic story of the Presidential Election of 2020. The plot goes beyond the election, however, as the author weaves in subplots involving domestic and international terrorism.

The election itself is a harbinger of possible future reform in America as it involves a viable third-party candidate who stands a real chance of getting elected. The sitting president is bound by a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution which limits her to a single, six-year term and must live under a provision which bans her from participating in politics while in office.

The plot picks up quickly and becomes very fast-paced and unpredictable as it nears an end which leaves the reader hopeful and optimistic about the future of American politics - much needed feelings. You will enjoy this book and will soon be talking about it with your friends.

Emory Daniels, freelance writer, web content specialist, book reviewer, lover of books.