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Several times during AFTER THE STORM, John Rousmaniere has cause to mention the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, in which a former shipmate perished. The pairing of these attacks with the subject matter of the book --- an analytical look at ships at sea facing great storms –-- may seem incongruous at first, but the juxtaposition of these narrative elements is not only reasonable but necessary.
AFTER THE STORM is not, strictly speaking, about storms; fans of The Weather Channel will not find a great deal of meteorological detail. It is not about ships, precisely; both the armchair sailor and the veteran sea-dog can appreciate the book in relatively equal measure. Instead, AFTER THE STORM is about the psychological impact of storms at sea on the sailors, passengers, and those on shore hoping for a safe return. Its focus is on the search for meaning after disasters at sea and has equal application for terrorist-driven disasters on land as well.
Rousmaniere spreads his themes over a wide historical range. AFTER THE STORM tells seven distinct stories, spanning a time period from the death of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in the Mediterranean in 1822 to the sinking of an American warship off the coast of Newfoundland in 1942. Rousmaniere then adds shorter narratives about other famous and infamous storms, from the biblical tale of Jonah to the stories of storm-chasers in the far South Pacific. The stories are a combination of good, solid historical research along with honest speculation about the fate of the ships involved, informed by Rousmaniere's personal, intimate knowledge of storms, ships, and sailors.
These stories are the result of the author's various searches for meaning. First, Rousmaniere is searching for a historical meaning, trying to reconstruct the last hours of these doomed ships. Here, he does a masterful job. The last hours of the mysterious Portland, a side-wheeler ferry that sank with all hands in an 1898 storm, are documented in depth. Rousmaniere's explanation for why the famous Mary Celeste was abandoned by her crew in 1872 is reasonable and compelling. The explanations of how and why each of the ships involved in the narrative sank or escaped their respective storms are lovingly told, with a great wealth of detail. Rousmaniere is patient in his analysis, explaining his findings in a way that can be easily understood by even the most landlocked reader. Furthermore, the historical side of things is exceptionally wide-ranging, including such diverse characters as Theodore Roosevelt, Henry David Thoreau, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the author of the hymn "Amazing Grace."
The search for the historical meaning of each of the disasters is accompanied by a search for a forensic meaning. Rousmaniere takes his analysis one step further, looking for the underlying reasons as to why the ships in his narrative sink or swim. Shelley, for example, was an incompetent sailor whose unrealistic romantic notions were of no help in a demanding Mediterranean squall. But veteran sailors too can make mistakes, and Rousmaniere points out the problems that sleeplessness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other dangers can pose to sailors beset by storms. The most dramatic story in the book concerns an accident aboard a small pleasure yacht racing across the North Atlantic and how the disregard of an essential safety rule led to the demise of three members of an influential New England family.
But the true search for meaning lies outside the historical record and the forensic assignment of blame. Rousmaniere finds the true meaning of his storms not in the actual events but their repercussions, which express themselves in unexpected ways. The distant results of the storms --- an Academy Award-nominated short film, a remarkable book about grief, a massive effort by a small fishing community to rescue shipwrecked sailors --- are as important to Rousmaniere as the details of seamanship and weather.
Rousmaniere's search for meaning in storms at sea is important and vital because it informs the reader about weathering the storms in our own lives, storms caused by fate or weather or by malign influences like terrorism. Despite an occasional wandering and unfocused bit of narrative here and there, it is well-written and extraordinarily insightful. AFTER THE STORM is a book that will impress all of those who go down to the sea in ships as well as the rest of us who go down to the sea in books.
--- Reviewed by Curtis D. Edmonds (curtis@txreviews.com), a movie reviewer at www.txreviews.com.
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