Finding the Devil: Darkness, Light, and the Untold Story of the Chilean Mine Disaster

by William Langewiesche

They were thirty-three men trapped beneath tons of rock half a mile underground. The odds of them making it out alive were almost nil. When they emerged nearly two months later, they were known around the world simply as the Chilean miners, and theirs had become one of the greatest survival stories of our time. But few of us know what really happened above and below the ground at that treacherous mine near Copiapó, Chile.

In his extraordinary report on the San Jose mine disaster, William Langewiesche, a two-time National Magazine Award winner and nine-time finalist, brings a cinematic eye for detail to bear on the many stories within the story. First there were the men trapped 2,200 feet below the surface, where they diligently rationed canned peaches as they waited in the dark for rescue. There was the well-intentioned minister of mining, who wanted only to bring the men back alive; a Chilean president perhaps hoping to use the opportunity to bolster his approval ratings; rescuers flown in from around the world, with competing plans of attack. There was the adventurous Hungarian family that built the mine, and the owners who cut corners to keep the business alive. And there was the incessant cry of the pneumatic hammers used to bore half a mile through bedrock, hoping blindly to reach their target.

Finally, there was the tense seven-week period during which families waited to see their loved ones again, the elaborate preparations for the rescue ceremony, the psychologists who prepared the miners for the celebrity status that awaited them on the surface. As the decisive moment came near, Langewiesche writes, "a parade of characters kept showing up at the scene priests and preachers, nuns, jugglers, Mormons, mimes, theater troupes, poets, long-distance walkers, a human billboard, and four Uruguayan survivors of the Andean airplane crash described in 'Alive.' "

Widely considered to be one of our era’s greatest narrative journalists, Langewiesche has been hailed by the "Washington Post" as a "sharp observer and gifted stylist whose sentences often have a kind of poetic precision." In "Finding the Devil," he uses that precision to unveil truths about human nature during a crisis, and to ask the provocative What is heroism, and what are mere heroics?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Langewiesche is the international correspondent for "Vanity Fair" and the author of several books, including "The Atomic The Rise of the Nuclear Poor," "The Outlaw A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime," "Cutting for Sign," about politics along the U.S.-Mexico border, "Sahara A Journey Across the Desert," " Thoughts on the Experience of Flight," "Fly by Wire," about the successful landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River, and "American Unbuilding the World Trade Center," a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Langewiesche has won two National Magazine Awards and has been a finalist nine times.

PRAISE FOR “FINDING THE DEVIL”

Author William Langewiesche goes past [the] long-forgotten pictures and headlines to present a keen, thorough picture of the circumstances surrounding this remarkable event. … His reporting on the miners' remarkable mental and physical stamina, and on the complicated rescue effort and surrounding publicity circus, makes “Finding the Devil” a powerful and entertaining read. —Liz Colville, San Francisco Chronicle

PRAISE FOR WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE

“[A] formidable talent … whose cool, precise and economical reporting is harnessed to an invigorating moral and intellectual perspective.” —The New York Times

“Langewiesche’s prose flows seamlessly and elegantly.” —San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

Genres: Nonfiction

70 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

William Archibald Langewiesche was an American author and journalist who was also a professional airplane pilot for many years. From 2019, he was a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine. Prior to that, he was a correspondent for The Atlantic and Vanity Fair magazines for twenty-nine years. He was the author of nine books and the winner of two National Magazine Awards.
He wrote articles covering a wide range of topics from shipbreaking, wine critics, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, modern ocean piracy, nuclear proliferation, and the World Trade Center cleanup.

Reviews

[Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me say first most my ratings are high because I generally search out what I will like before I read it, I don't take many chances. This book was a fluke of a chance- somehow I saw it mentioned somewhere as a good read so I got it because it was a 1.99 risk.

What a worthy 5 star!!!
I know nothing of mining, geology, Chile, and only vaguely remember the news when this happened. The author wrote incredibly well. This grabbed me from the first 2 pages and read like a mystery thriller like the novels and non-fiction I read. Did it in 4 days. It was fast, never loses pace, keeps your interest, and is full of information that is true to boot. Just like all tragedies, this one was exploited by the politicians and media. What we saw and or heard during the 60+ days was just scripted crap. This takes a look behind the scenes, and provides a wide scope vision of the way that the public is fed twisted and distorted facts to build someones career or make someone rich, and the way a story gets distorted before it gets told. But unlike other tragedies, this one ends well with all 33 miners surviving. What was involved is fascinating and reads like a fiction novel where you can't stop and just put it down. So I give it 5 stars. Fast, true, exciting, thought provoking and educational wrapped in a well written story.

And this doesn't even give away the ending last few paragraphs. That is what I didn't expect.

[Martin Sandmair · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a big fan of Langewiesche and have read most of his stuff, but I cannot find this title anywhere. If anybody here could point me to a source, or if anyone is willing to sell a copy, that would be much appreciated.

[Ellen Herbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I learned a great deal and found this account quite good, there are so many unanswered questions and much more to the story of the Chilean Mine Disaster. I would like now to know more about the personalities of the miners and the day to day realities that they faced in the mine while a scramble was taking place up above.

[Claire McDaniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gave me an idea of what it was like for the miners and how politicians used the occasion to serve their own purposes.

[Kristen Schrader (Wenke) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for more information on what it was like inside the mine during the cave-in. This is more concerned with what was happening above-ground, both politically and technically.