This is Kipling's only novel concerning North America. It is consistent with his others in the underlying theme that experience is the great teacher. Harvey Cheyne is a coddled adolescent whose parents' wealth he takes for granted. The bulk of the story concerns his going over the rail on an Atlantic steamship crossing and being rescued by the crew of a Great Banks fishing boat.

Kipling has done a lot of research on North Atlantic fishing and the New England fishing crews. He gets the details right (as he does with his shorter description of American railroads late in the story). Much of the plot is predictable and the details not nearly as interestingly presented as Patrick O'Brian does in his books called the Aubrey-Maturin series.

Glad I read it, but the old movie with Spencer Tracey was quite adequate.