Cindy Vallar's Blog - Posts Tagged "cambridge-college"

A True Account: Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself by Katherine Howe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A hanging is a momentous affair. Especially when the execution is of a pirate. William Fly, no less, a totally unrepentant sinner. Everyone will be there . . . well, everyone but Hannah Masury. She’s been forbidden to go by her employer, but Hannah doesn’t necessarily heed what she’s told.

When Hannah finally returns to the tavern’s stable where she sleeps, she finds it occupied by a young lad. He claims to be Billy Chandler and he’s hiding because everyone wants him dead. He even shows her the black spot that marks him for death. She’s not fully convinced that he tells the truth until after they head for the tavern to get some food while everyone else is asleep. But they become separated. She hears a gravelly voice and an odd sound before she stumbles upon Billy’s dead body. Then her name floats through the fog. If she wants to live, she has only one chance: don male attire and pretend to be Billy. He planned on shipping out on a schooner as a cabin boy, which provides her with the means and opportunity to escape before the pirates catch her. As they say, the best laid plans don’t always work out exactly as one hopes, and she finds herself aboard the Reporter whose captain spends most of his time drunk in his cabin and the first mate is none other than Edward Low.

Travel forward in time from 1726 to 1930. Professor Marian Beresford teaches history at Cambridge College in Boston. One of her students, Kay Lonergan, has come across a handwritten diary from two centuries ago. Marian is skeptical about its authenticity, but there’s something compelling about the journal. The more she reads, the more she questions her initial findings. She decides to visit her father, an esteemed historian, in New York and get his opinion. He concurs with her initial assessment . . . but even a slim chance of it being real is sufficient for the trio to persuade the Explorers Club to finance a trip to find the pirate treasure that Hannah Masury writes about in her diary. Just imagine the glory that such a find will bring with it. Marian may finally prove herself worthy of following in her father’s footsteps. In the meantime, Kay wants to go for another reason . . . publicity. She thrives on getting her name in the spotlight, and so she joins them on their grand adventure.

The past and present are interwoven in a seamless tapestry that contrasts Masury’s life with Beresford’s. Marian also compares who she is now with who she was when she was Kay’s age, as well as measuring her own choices and career with that of her father. Howe provides an accurate depiction of Ned Low’s brutality as a pirate and hints at the fact that he didn’t start out being that way. The story is also rife with pirate tropes. Pirate life and behavior is realistically portrayed, although I found it interesting that Marian’s father cites The Pirates Own Book as being the source he uses as proof that the journal is a fake. (This 19th-century volume includes falsehoods as well as truths much like the pirate-age contemporary resource, A General History of Pyrates.)

Two words are key to whether this story works: “plausible” and “probable.” Women did masquerade as men and did become pirates, but how likely was it for one to join the crew of Ned Low? While I think the answer improbable, Howe weaves her tale with enough believability to make Hannah’s story plausible. The entwining of past and present strengthens that belief, while the themes of betrayal, humiliation, and proving oneself are universal and transcend time.


(This review originally appeared at Pirates & Privateers: http://www.cindyvallar.com/adult-hist...)



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