From the Bookshelf of 2018 TCPL Reading Challenge! …

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Review In this terrific true-life seafaring adventure, Philbrick details to true story of Nantucket's Essex whaling ship, rammed and downed by a sperm whale in 1820. This book was recommended by our tour guide Bill Jamieson and the story inspired Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

There are a number of remarkable points about this story. For more than 150 years the only written account of the episode was by first mate Owen Chase. Then, in the early 1970s a new account surfaced by cabin boy Thomas Nickerson. That account was discovered in an attic in upstate New York (Penn Yan area)! Nickerson had written his account and sent it to an editor who had stayed at his Nantucket boarding house. The editor returned to New York, never did anything with the manuscript, and then gave it to a neighbor to store. Nickerson's account supplies more details about the castaways and their fates, which Philbrick mines to elaborate the story.

Philbrick also explores the treatment of African American crew members and their place in Nantucket history. They were the first to die, in part because they had less fat to burn and had had poorer provisions in the months leading up to the capsize. Also notable is Philbrick's exploration of the role of leadership in survival and demise and in addition, the Quaker culture on Nantucket.

Quaint, tony Nantucket--once a whaling powerhouse with wealth built form the slaughter of whales, who later, proving their intelligence, proved vengeful.