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A Novel
by Charlotte Rogan
Book Reviewed by:In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying Grace Winter and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.
Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.
In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.
As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she'd found. Will she pay any price to keep it?
The Lifeboat is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes.
Rogan does a magnificent job keeping the tension tight throughout the book and the sense of place is masterfully accomplished, bringing alive all five senses by way of sharp, well-honed descriptions. The Lifeboat is gripping, edge-of-your-seat fiction that forces the reader to examine his or her own true nature, begging the question, "What would you be willing to do in order to survive?"..continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Lisa Guidarini).
When human beings are torn from society and forced to fight for survival, our true nature is often revealed. With very clear threats to life and limb, and without any need to account for our actions when laws become irrelevant, we can revert to our primal instincts for personal survival. But to what extent is a person willing to go in order to survive? In a kill-or-be-killed situation, are humans actually more highly evolved than other animals? Throughout history, writers have tried to answer these questions, among others, via the art of fiction.
Believed to have been written in 1610 or 1611, William Shakespeare's The Tempest is the story of The Duke of Milan -...
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On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Emma Donoghue, author of Room
The Lifeboat traps the reader in a story that is exciting at the literal level and brutally moving at the existential: I read it in one go.
