The Lifeboat

February 13, 2012
Set at the beginning of WWI, Rogan’s debut follows 22-year-old Grace Winter, a newlywed, newly minted heiress who survives a harrowing three weeks at sea following the sinking of her ocean liner and the disappearance of her husband, Henry. Safe at home in the U.S., Grace and two other survivors are put on trial for their actions aboard the under-built, overloaded lifeboat. At sea, as food and water ran out, and passengers realized that some among them would die, questions of sacrifice and duty arose. Rogan interweaves the trial with a harrowing day-by-day story of Grace’s time aboard the lifeboat, and circles around society’s ideas about what it means to be human, what responsibilities we have to each other, and whether we can be blamed for choices made in order to survive. Grace is a complex and calculating heroine, a middle-class girl who won her wealthy husband through smalltime subterfuge. Her actions on the boat are far from faultless, and her memory of them spotty. By refusing to judge her, Rogan leaves room for readers to decide for themselves. A complex and engrossing psychological drama. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick & Williams.

Gripping suspense swells throughout Rebecca Gibel's narration of the fate of 39 lifeboat survivors after a mysterious explosion sinks the luxury ocean liner EMPRESS ALEXANDRA in 1914. Grace, the listener learns at the beginning, has survived the calamity only find herself on trial for murder. While Gibel ably performs the gruff voices of men and the accents of international passengers, as Grace her performance is too glib--naòve and incongruous--for a young widow who has survived catastrophe, deplorable hardship, and the miseries of dire thirst and starvation. The spellbinding novel is engrossing, and the author's attention to detail and moral complexity radiates. But would Grace really have the capacity for such unmitigated cheer in the face of the death and terrible cruelty in the confines of a lifeboat adrift at sea? A.W. (c) AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine