Review by New York Times Review
"A SINGULAR disadvantage of the sea," Stephen Crane wrote in his 1897 story "The Open Boat," based on his experiences on a lifeboat off the coast of Florida, "lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important." The unrelenting sea and its vast indifference to the shipwrecked is a subject that has always attracted both writers and readers. We are fascinated, and appalled, by how quickly men and women are brought to a childlike state, curled in tight on themselves and unable to call on their own free will, sanity or morality. Most riveting of all, perhaps, is the tension that emerges between extreme emotional and physical reduction and an expanded, even predatory, desire to survive. Grace Winter, the antiheroine of Charlotte Rogan's impressive, harrowing first novel, "The Lifeboat," is nothing if not a survivor. Twenty-two years old and clearly very attractive, she narrates the book with panache - and a good dose of unreliability - insisting she lives by the principle "God helps those who help themselves." When the ocean liner transporting Grace and her (very rich) new husband to the United States on the eve of World War I suffers a catastrophic explosion, she wedges herself into Lifeboat 14, along with 38 others. There she staves off the mounting hysteria around her and aligns herself with John Hardie, an experienced sailor who takes control of the food and water and makes instantaneous, God-like decisions. He steers the boat away from a boy clinging to a plank and, shortly after, delivers a brutal kick to the face of a swimmer trying to climb aboard. In fact, as Grace and her fellow castaways soon discover, they are already perilously overcrowded. For any to survive, a few must volunteer to go over the side, and you can bet Grace won't be one of them. "If Mr. Hardie hadn't beaten people away," she admits with delicious coolness, "I would have had to do it myself." FRAMED by scenes of Grace after the ordeal - she has been charged, along with two other survivors, with the murder of one of their companions - the bulk of the novel traps us in the disintegrating world of the lifeboat, buffeted by squalls and by a brewing power struggle between the darkly appealing Mr. Hardie and an unflappable older woman named Mrs. Grant. With this clashing surrogate father and mother, Rogan dramatizes the novel's central moral issue: is it ethically acceptable to allow (or compel) the weakest to die so the majority may live? She refuses to make absolute judgments, leaving the verdict in our hands. Rogan writes viscerally about the desperate condition of the castaway, of what it is like to be "surrounded on four sides by walls of black water" or to be so thirsty your tongue swells to the size of "a dried and hairless mouse." But it's her portrait of Grace, who is by turns astute, conniving, comic and affecting, that drives the book. Like her literary forebear Becky Sharp, Grace wants a great deal from this life and feels justified in using whatever wiles might be necessary to secure her own happy ending. Of her seduction of her husband she explains: "I had worn a pale dress and outlined my eyes so they looked big in my ashen face. It wasn't a costume or disguise, exactly, but a form of communication." As Rogan proves with this indelible character, there's a profound truth and even beauty in Grace's degree of self-loyalty. Our humanity demands resistance to the forces that would obliterate us. Or, as Crane's protagonist in "The Open Boat" cries to a universe he knows is deaf and implacable: "Yes, but I love myself." Sarah Towers teaches creative writing at the Bard Prison Initiative.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 6, 2012]
Review by Booklist Review
A young woman's first-person story of survival against seemingly insurmountable odds reveals truths about human nature and, particularly, about herself. Married just four weeks earlier, Grace and Henry Winter cut short their visit to London in 1914 after Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated. Wealthy Henry is able to book their passage back to New York on the Empress Alexandra and then to wangle space on a lifeboat for Grace as the ship is sinking. Grace's survival is never in question in the opening pages, she's one of three women from her lifeboat being tried for murder but her story is no less harrowing for that, since she reveals more of herself throughout her ordeal. Early on, ship's crewman Mr. Hardie is a hero on the boat, providing invaluable if harsh leadership, whether deeming that some must be sacrificed for the sake of all or strictly doling out limited rations. But things change as conditions worsen. This is an accomplished first novel, noteworthy for its moral complexity and the sheer power of its story.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Set at the beginning of WWI, Rogan's debut follows 22-year-old Grace Winter, a newlywed, newly minted heiress who survives a harrowing three weeks at sea following the sinking of her ocean liner and the disappearance of her husband, Henry. Safe at home in the U.S., Grace and two other survivors are put on trial for their actions aboard the under-built, overloaded lifeboat. At sea, as food and water ran out, and passengers realized that some among them would die, questions of sacrifice and duty arose. Rogan interweaves the trial with a harrowing day-by-day story of Grace's time aboard the lifeboat, and circles around society's ideas about what it means to be human, what responsibilities we have to each other, and whether we can be blamed for choices made in order to survive. Grace is a complex and calculating heroine, a middle-class girl who won her wealthy husband through smalltime subterfuge. Her actions on the boat are far from faultless, and her memory of them spotty. By refusing to judge her, Rogan leaves room for readers to decide for themselves. A complex and engrossing psychological drama. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick & Williams. (Apr. 10) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Rogan's elegantly written debut draws the reader into the confidences of Grace Winter, a 22-year-old newlywed then widow fighting for her life. In 1914, during a transatlantic crossing, the ship carrying Grace and her husband suffers a crippling explosion and begins to sink. Henry secures a place for his wife on an overcrowded lifeboat, but once among the debris and wreckage, the survivors realize that the boat is unstable. Some passengers will have to die so others can live. The castaways begin to battle the sea and the weather while engaging in a psychological battle of wills against one another. As life and death loom on the crest of every wave, it is unclear who will turn on whom and what will happen to this collection of desperate humanity. VERDICT Within the framework of a simple narrative that draws readers in on waves of fear and desperation, this stunning and suspenseful tale of survival offers a terrifying vision of human nature. Rogan's portrait of a protagonist who considers time, memory, and the loss of innocence in her shifting ruminations is unforgettable. [See Prepub Alert, 10/14/11.]-Ron Samul, New London, CT (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
First-time novelist Rogan's architectural background shows in the precision with which she structures the edifice of moral ambiguity surrounding a young woman's survival during three weeks in a crowded lifeboat adrift in the Atlantic in 1914. The novel begins with Grace back on American soil, on trial for her actions on the boat. Two other female survivors who are also charged, Hannah and Mrs. Grant, plead self-defense. Grace, guided by her lawyer Mr. Reichmann, who has had her write down her day-by-day account of events, pleads not guilty. Rogan leaves it up to the reader to decide how reliable a narrator Grace may be. Newly impoverished after her father's financial ruin and subsequent suicide, New Yorker Grace set her sites on the wealthy young financier Henry Winter and soon won him, never mind that he was already engaged. They sailed together, pretending to be married, to London, where he had business and they legally wed before boarding Empress Alexandra (named for the soon-to-be-assassinated Tsarina) to return home. When an unexplained explosion rocks the ship, Henry gallantly places her, perhaps with a bribe, into a lifeboat already packed to over-capacity. She never sees him again. An Empress crewmember, Mr. Hardie, quickly takes charge of the passengers, distributing the limited rations and organizing work assignments with godlike authority. As hope for quick salvation dims, passengers fall into numb lethargy. Some go mad. There are natural deaths and (reluctantly) voluntary sacrificial drownings. Dissention grows. Mr. Hardie's nemesis is the sternly maternal Mrs. Grant and feminist Hannah, who plant suspicions about his motives and competence. Grace avoids taking sides but eventually helps the other women literally overthrow him into the sea. Is she acting out of frail weakness, numbed by her ordeal, or are her survival instincts more coldblooded? Even she may not be sure; much of her conversation circles morality and religion. The lifeboat becomes a compelling, if almost overly crafted, microcosm of a dangerous larger world in which only the strong survive.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
