The author introduces her story by explaining what the lives of those who took these multi-years round the world voyages were like. She recreates 19th century Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, New Bedford, and Fairhaven for her readers. You will read of the family's that would wait for up to 5 years for a family member to return, and also those who might return after 4 or 5 years to find they had new children or even their wife had remarried believing her husband had been lost as sea. Ms. Druett also shares the details of the crew manifest, why fugitive slaves often were found on these ships and why many who embarked on one ship would return on the second or even third ship they had crewed upon since leaving.

The story of the Sharon is brutal by any measure. Captain Howes Norris was unfit to captain a ship over 150 years ago, and would be a villain in any year since then. Sadistic behavior cannot take place without the active or passive consent of others in authority, and those who were complicit had every reason to hide what took place and are responsible for this story's remaining buried for so many years.

The author does not sensationalize the events of 1841-1845; she takes the reader from the earliest hunting of whales by Native Americans to the spectacular growth of international whaling that needed captains that could bring in ships loaded with whale oil. Their ability to bring in this cash crop was what ship owners were interested in, not the personality, civility or the humanity of the man at the helm. There were far more ships than qualified men to run them. This shortage also explained the willingness of captains to fill their ships' compliment of crew during the voyage with men who had deserted from other ships.

The last book about whaling I enjoyed this much was, "In The Heart Of The Sea", by Nathaniel Philbrick. In addition to telling this tale the writer provides wonderful notes that can direct the inquisitive reader as far as they would like to go in further reading. This book's drama is created by men and not a whale that brought about one of the great survival stories in History however, readers will be well rewarded by spending their time with Joan Druett, and if they enjoy what they have read, happily this lady has several other books she has written.


The Criminal Captain   June 2, 2003
 14 out of 16 found this review helpful

Joan Druett's "In the Wake of Madness" joins the glut of recently published worksks about historical nautical disasters and mutinies that are lining the bookshelves these days. The quality of these books varies widely, but fortunately Druett's is both well-researched and well-written. The story of the ill-fated 1841 voyage of the whaleship Sharon is fairly grusome in its details. The ships's captain, Howes Norris, a respected member of the Martha's Vineyard community, became increasingly mentally unhinged, turning on members of his crew with savage fury. Things came to a head when he literally beat his cabin steward to death in front of the crew. Not long after, Captain Norris was himself savagely murdered by several Pacific islander crew members that had been picked up as replacements for deserters from the original crew.

All of this Druett recounts with prose that is elegant and highly readable. Throughout, she intertwines the story of the Sharon with that of Herman Melville, the "Moby Dick" author who had sailed on a whaling ship and was starting his writing career at around the same time. She describes the awful conditions that the whaleship crews labored under and throws in enough historical backdrop to frame the story.

If the book has a drawback, its that there were no surviving firsthand accounts of Captain Morris's death. Most of the book draws on never-published journals kept by two of the crew members. Unfortunately, both journals have signifcant gaps in them, which Druett attempts to fill with other contemporary accounts of whaling vessles. For the most part, she succeeds, though the book could also have used an illustrations section. At 230 pages of narrative, it is a relatively fast read.

Overall, an excellent work of narrative nautical history that will appeal most strongly to those who love good sea adventure tales.


REIGN OF TERROR ON THE HIGH SEAS   September 2, 2005
 5 out of 6 found this review helpful

"Whaling captains were men who left their souls at home."

On May 25, 1841, the whaling ship Sharon departed Fairhaven, Massachusetts for the limitless Pacific. She sailed under the command of Captain Howes Norris.

The sun was already setting on America's whaling industry. Consistent successful voyages had inspired investors to build more and more ships, which swelled America's whaling fleet to its largest in history. This resulted in an acute shortage of competent sailors--especially harpooners--which thereupon resulted in unqualified crews manning the ships, and particularly the whaleboats, the small craft dispatched to harpoon the whales. Not to mention, years of successful voyages had drastically reduced the sperm whale population. Now, what few whales were sighted, inexperienced harpooners often failed to drive in the harpoon deeply enough to kill, or even missed their gargantuan targets altogether. If a whaling master failed to bring home at least 1,500 barrels of oil, he seriously risked never being granted a command again.

And the somewhat inexperienced, somewhat innocent crew of the Sharon weighed anchor under the restless command of Howes Norris. It was to become one of the most notorious voyages of the 19th century.

Month after month slid by . . . the Sharon paced along the broiling equator, ever hopeful, but seldom satisfied. If she stopped at an island for provisions, desertion was commonplace. Men would jump ship in the night and swim a half-mile to shore. And so natives were taken aboard to fill vacancies. A somewhat inexperienced crew was rendered even more inexperienced.

On a fine Pacific day in November 1842, as the vast majority of the scant crew were out in the whaleboats, Captain Norris was viciously murdered--literally cut in two--by natives recruited at Rotuma. What could have inspired such horrific violence? Was this an unprovoked attack by savages? Or was it retribution?

This is one of the most readable nautical books I've ever read. The author convincingly evokes the monotony of life at sea, the explosive results of close quarters, the frustration of a captain on a fruitless voyage, and the terror of a man with unquestionable authority. With this book, I could feel the deck swaying beneath my feet; I could see the wet decks steaming in the equatorial sun.

The author paints beautiful portraits of exotic locales visited by the Sharon, islands such as Nukuoro, Rotuma, Banaba, and Kiribati. She also draws compelling parallels between the Sharon's ugly voyage and the fiction of Herman Melville, who himself served aboard whalers and witnessed firsthand the cruelty of angry shipmasters.

Anyone looking to start a nautical library--this book would be a perfect first purchase.


I'll keep this short...   January 19, 2006
 5 out of 7 found this review helpful

The tale of the "Sharon" is an interesting one, indeed. Ms. Druett is a knowledgable historian, and perhaps a very fine text book author. However, this particular book is disjointed. It is extremely frustrating to the reader when one of the main principals in this storyis "never to be heard from again" WHAT? after two hundred pages, I would have liked at least some rumors of his fate. Another dies an early death, time and place noted, but NO CAUSE of death. AARRGGGHHH. Also distracting are the continual references to Herman Melville, who was neither present, nor directly involved with the story at all. In all, the story could be interesting, and I hope someone else will take it up, because I felt somewhat cheated.