Normandie: Her Life and Times

by Harvey Ardman

Recounts the construction of the Normandie, one of the world's largest ocean liners, describes the ship's facilities, decoration, and voyages, and explains why it was dismantled for scrap in 1946

432 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1985

About the author

Harvey Ardman is a journalist and novelist with 50 years of experience, having written 22 books, both fiction and non-fiction, and dozens of documentary films for PBS and other television outlets. His chief interests are 20th century history, politics, scientific development, social change, religion and the Internet. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in journalism from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in the state of Maine.

Reviews

[Rick Burin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A remarkably well-researched account of the Normandie’s creation, glory days and tragic fate that sadly falls down a touch in the writing. The opening chapters are too dry – presumably a treat for hull-length aficionados and gross-tonnage obsessives, but not the casual reader – though the book’s most obvious failing is that while it gives us a detailed tour of the vessel in its heyday, it fails to truly evoke life on board or articulate what was special about the ship, beyond its size, speed and sense of opulence.

More time and colour seems to be expended on the (essentially pointless) salvage operation than on those salad days. Those later sections really do sing, though. By far the best parts of the book are those that deal with the fire in New York, and the ship’s subsequent years – there is nothing eerier, after all, than luxury run to ruin, or a place that once teemed with life but is now bereft of it. While the impact is lessened by the shallowness of those earlier chapters, Ardman makes SS Normandie feel like a real person, and her sudden and precipitous decline is correspondingly moving.

One curious omission: though there are countless references to Normandie in popular culture, Hitchcock’s classic thriller, Saboteur, was presumably inspired by the rumours around the vessel’s burning, and features footage of the ship on its side, and yet isn’t mentioned once.

[Edward Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This nonfiction book reads like a page-turning novel. The author ties together detailed facts of Normandie's conception, construction, service, and destruction with the events leading up to and through WWII. A must-read for any fan of Normandie, and of interest to ocean liner aficionados in general.