Disclaimer: I received an ARC via Netgalley.

Oh, a new David Grann book! Happy Day.

Grann’s new book details the lost of the battleship The Wager and the struggle for survival that the crew endured. It’s like Lord of the Flies meets Mutiny on the Bounty meets Swiss Family We Don’t Know Anything. The crew of the Wager was part of a group of ships that were tasked with capturing a Spanish treasure ship. The Wager sinks shortly after passing Cape Horn, eventually sinking off the coast of Chile. After making it to an island, the group eventually ruptures and a mutiny occurs.

Part of the issue that Grann addresses are the conflicting stories – that of David Cheap, the captain of the ship when it went down, and that of John Bulkley, the gunner. Bulkley contends that the mutiny was justified while Cheap, of course, felt quite differently.

What Grann does, however, isn’t just focus on the actual mutiny and following trial but on the various class and imperialistic pressures that lead up to the circumstances of the mutiny. Part of the reason why the man were on the ship to begin with had to do with the imperialistic desires of not just Britain but Europe as a whole – why else send a fleet to travel the globe just to hunt down one ship. But it is also class – should Buckley have the same right of speech, of story that Cheap would? Additionally, there is the sad tale of the only black man on the ship, a man that was lost to history for a variety of factors - imperialism and racism being the primary to.

What is also addressed is the treatment of indigenous populations by the British in particular, and Imperial powers in general. When the crew of the Wager is stranded on a smile island, one of the difficulties they have is getting food. When an indigenous tribe shows up, the British accept the much needed help but also look down up the tribe, even though the tribe’s help was necessary for the group’s survive. It is no surprise the tribe left in the midnight of the night after having enough.

It is to Grann’s credit that while he does seem a bit more partial to Buckley, he presents the various viewpoints and sides of the Mutiny. The reader is given information about Cheap, enough that Cheap does and is not the stereotypical Captain Bligh of the movies. Perhaps the crewman that Grann must feels for is Byron, grandfather of the poet, and not even twenty when he leaves on the ship. He goes from boy to man over the course of events, and it is voice and his struggle in terms of morality that resonates the most with the reader. That and the lost story of the black crewman – John Duck who had actually managed to escape not only the wreck and the island to reach Buenos Aires, and then collided with the stark reality of a imperialistic Spain.