The Ship of Dreams

July 1, 2019

Historian/novelist Russell looks at the lives of six first-class passengers--among them Lucy Leslie, Countess of Rothes; Jewish American immigrant Ida Straus; and American model and movie star Dorothy Gibson--to tell the larger story of the sinking of the Titanic. He also considers previously unpublished sources, deck plans, journal entries, and surviving artifacts to provide a you-are-there sense of the ship's sinking and argues that this tragedy ushered the world into the modern era. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 14, 2019
Russell (Young and Damned and Fair) recounts the story of the Titanic through the experiences of six first-class passengers and their families in this elegantly written and impressively researched account that takes a uniquely wide-angled view of the disaster. Among those profiled are British aristocrat Noëlle Leslie, countess of Rothes; Thomas Andrews, managing director of the Belfast shipyard where the Titanic was built; German-American philanthropist Ida Straus; John Thayer, vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and his son, Jack; and Dorothy Gibson, “one of the highest-paid actresses in the world.” Russell adroitly sketches the backgrounds of his main characters as he tracks their movements during the fateful trip, drawing from hundreds of sources to describe the ship’s Turkish baths, first-class dining saloon, six-course meals, and boiler rooms. Along the way, he offers crash courses in the decline of the English aristocracy, the Irish home rule movement, the rise of American industrialists, and the fallout from the 1881 assassination of czar Alexander II, among other subjects, and corrects the rumor that third-class passengers were locked in their quarters on the night the ship sank. The result is a scrupulous and entertaining portrait of “a world that was by turns victim and author of the tragedies that overtook it.” Agent: Brettne Bloom, the Book Group.

Starred review from November 1, 2019
As Russell (Young and Damned and Fair, 2017) points out from the very outset of his social history of the Titanic, the doomed ocean liner has sailed into the realm of myth and clich�. Russell's goal is less to recount the ship's construction and maiden voyage than to place the vessel's builders, crew, and passengers into the context of the close of Britain's Edwardian Era, with its class stratification and persistent anti-Semitism. He focuses in particular on Lucy Leslie, Countess of Rothes, who proved not only an elegantly bejeweled dinner companion, but also a smart, generous survivor, offering herself for the most menial tasks competently and graciously. He searches into the life of Ulsterman ship designer Thomas Andrews, first to comprehend the deathblow from the Titanic's encounter with the iceberg and whose steely resolve saved lives without creating panic. Russell is unsparing in his portraits of those who failed in human decency. The book delves into the many conspiracy myths and even outright lies that have muddied the historical record, somewhat rehabilitating steamship executive J. Bruce Ismay, who survived but was accused of cowardice and worse. Photographs and a comprehensive bibliography add to Russell's telling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)