Narrative: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Informational: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Was it a sin to want to live? That was the question posed by Gunner Bulkeley after abandoning eight of his fellow sailors on the coast of South America, effectively dooming them to death or capture. This question was not unique; in fact, it had surely plagued every sailor after the shipwreck of the Wager, which left them stranded on the island where they would come to find their cursed salvation. However, Bulkeley knew he had to make harsh decisions to survive, just like when he and his other sailors had tied up and left their captain on Wager Island to try to return to England on their own. In the harrowing tale of The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, people like Bulkeley make harsh decisions to survive until the very end.
The story of The Wager followed three main perspectives: that of John Bulkeley, John Byron, and David Cheap. Set during the War of Jenkin’s Ear, England was in the middle of a massive conflict with Spain, and Admiral Anson aboard the Centurion was tasked with hijacking a Spanish ship off the coast of Patagonia to take the treasure onboard. With the help of several other ships such as Cheap’s ship the Wager, they were meant to travel across the sea from Great Britain down the dreaded Drake Passage between Cape Horn and Antarctica. If you’ve ever heard of this passage, you already know the danger ahead for these men. Even today, people hold their breaths and pop a couple of motion sickness pills before making this trip.
As you can probably guess, the plan went horribly wrong. Hundreds of men died from sickness before they even made it to the most deadly part of the voyage, and when they finally entered Drake’s Passage the Wager was separated from the rest of the fleet. They finally crashed on a desolate island, devoid of resources, with the leftover crew realizing their true enemy. Let me give you a hint: it wasn’t the ocean anymore.
If you have ever read Lord of the Flies by William Golding, then this is probably striking a familiar chord. People were stranded on a desolate island with the only enemy being the people around them. David Grann was not ignorant of this comparison, quoting the famous book before the prologue, “Maybe there is a beast…maybe it’s only us.” However, the story of the Wager was more than a Lord of the Flies clone. The sailors stranded on the island had a strong sense of duty to their king and country, and Captain Cheap did a valiant job of holding the line. Byron was the innocent boy in the position of the reader. As I read, I felt the anguish at their decisions and the heartache they felt to risk it all for survival.
I went into this book with a kind of enchanted view of life at sea. Imagining myself a sailor or a pirate was something I found entertaining, spurred along by the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise and Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. Reading The Wager brought me back to reality. Being a sailor wasn’t just a thing in movies, for the people of the Wager and other ships it was their whole life. The account of this shipwreck was nothing short of a masterpiece. It detailed the horrors of a life at sea with both accuracy and incredible narrative prowess. You feel for the three men as they separated on their pasts to escape the island and sea. I am usually intimidated by nonfiction due to being bogged down with a heartless retelling of history, but David Grann did such an excellent job that at times I had to remind myself that this was a series of events and not something made up.
I urge everyone with even a minuscule interest in the subject of life at sea to pick this book up. There was a specific reason why The Wager’s author was Barnes and Noble’s selection for 2024 Author of the Year, and that reason is that David Grann is a master of his craft. Poetic and truthful, this book leaves the reader with what it means to hold onto life with everything you’ve got.
Alex Eubanks is a student from Kennesaw State University working on her B.S. in English Education. In between reading and writing for Waymark, she works as Opinion Editor for The Sentinel, KSU’s student newspaper. She also works at the KSU Writing Center as an assistant, where she helps run two book clubs. Alex enjoys attending local concerts, playing D&D with friends, and reading up to four books at a time.
Related
