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The Voyage
In the tradition of great seafaring adventures, The Voyage is an intricately plotted, superbly detailed, and gripping story of adventure and courage. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Caputo has written a timeless novel about the dangerous reverberating effects of long held family secrets.
On a June morning in 1901, Cyrus Braithwaite orders his three sons to set sail from their Maine home aboard the family's forty-six-foot schooner and not return until September. Though confused and hurt by their father's cold-blooded actions, the three brothers soon rise to the occasion and embark on a breathtakingly perilous journey down the East Coast, headed for the Florida Keys.
Almost one hundred years later, Cyrus's great-granddaughter Sybil sets out to uncover the events that transpired on the voyage. Her discoveries about the Braithwaite family and the America they lived in unfolds into a stunning tale of intrigue, murder, lies and deceit.
On a June morning in 1901, Cyrus Braithwaite orders his three sons to set sail from their Maine home aboard the family's forty-six-foot schooner and not return until September. Though confused and hurt by their father's cold-blooded actions, the three brothers soon rise to the occasion and embark on a breathtakingly perilous journey down the East Coast, headed for the Florida Keys.
Almost one hundred years later, Cyrus's great-granddaughter Sybil sets out to uncover the events that transpired on the voyage. Her discoveries about the Braithwaite family and the America they lived in unfolds into a stunning tale of intrigue, murder, lies and deceit.
415 pages, Paperback
First published October 19, 1999
71 people are currently reading
545 people want to read
About the author
Philip Caputo
32 books319 followersAmerican author and journalist. Author of 18 books, including the upcoming MEMORY AND DESIRE (Sept. 2023). Best known for
A Rumor of War,
a best-selling memoir of his experiences during the Vietnam War. Website: PhilipCaputo.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
February 7, 2017
Should be an East Coast classic. A turn of the 20th century sailing epic adventure that takes 4 boys from down east Maine to Cuba on a wooden schooner on a journey they didn't plan. I didn't understand some of the sailing jargon but that didn't matter. Historical, mysterious, thrilling, tragic, tumultuous. My only criticism is a sloppy "story within a story" format that fades away for most of the book but does provide the means to tidy up loose ends. A well-read friend recommended it and I am passing it on.
August 10, 2017
An intriguing story to be sure. If you like exceptionally well developed characters going from one adversity to another and growing in the process, you'll enjoy this book. Three teenagers are driven out of their house by their father, without explanation, and quite literally set adrift off the coast of Maine. Unable to contact their mother, and since they are experienced seamen, they elect to pursue adventure at sea and sail to Florida.
Their father's reason for abandoning them is the central mystery of the novel but it plays only a subsidiary role in the maturing of all three teens. At least until the very end of their journey.
Caputo is a master of language. His scenes are vivid, especially the storms at sea, and he gives the reader a profound insight into the minds and hearts of his characters. All that having been said, I can't give the book five stars. The pacing of the tale is dreadfully slow, especially at the outset. To my mind, there are too many gratuitous scenes that only marginally enhance the characters. The author also uses a frame structure that probably could have been avoided with more deft plotting.
The book was, at times, a chore to read but was satisfying when finally completed. I would not recommend it to an impatient reader.
Their father's reason for abandoning them is the central mystery of the novel but it plays only a subsidiary role in the maturing of all three teens. At least until the very end of their journey.
Caputo is a master of language. His scenes are vivid, especially the storms at sea, and he gives the reader a profound insight into the minds and hearts of his characters. All that having been said, I can't give the book five stars. The pacing of the tale is dreadfully slow, especially at the outset. To my mind, there are too many gratuitous scenes that only marginally enhance the characters. The author also uses a frame structure that probably could have been avoided with more deft plotting.
The book was, at times, a chore to read but was satisfying when finally completed. I would not recommend it to an impatient reader.
February 29, 2020
With high expectations I began The Voyage but disappointment soon set in. The first 300 hundred pages were a real slog. If I hadn't recently purchased a small sailboat and was in the mood for some ye olde sailing terminology (of which there is an over abundance) I would have scuttled the book 1/2 way through.
The first 3/4 reads like a cross between Life on the Mississippi and Old Yeller (substitute the sailboat for the dog. Badly in need of editing. This part I give 2 stars.
Once the hurricane hits the writing becomes more concise and the book became more engaging until the final chapter. 4 stars for this section.
The final chapter sums up family history which is introduced throughout the first half of the book in a very disjointed way. This reads like an over the top Jerry Springer episode circa 1990's.
Summing up 3 stars - Enjoyed 100 pages but cannot forgive Caputo for the first 300.
The seas are angry today my friends.
The first 3/4 reads like a cross between Life on the Mississippi and Old Yeller (substitute the sailboat for the dog. Badly in need of editing. This part I give 2 stars.
Once the hurricane hits the writing becomes more concise and the book became more engaging until the final chapter. 4 stars for this section.
The final chapter sums up family history which is introduced throughout the first half of the book in a very disjointed way. This reads like an over the top Jerry Springer episode circa 1990's.
Summing up 3 stars - Enjoyed 100 pages but cannot forgive Caputo for the first 300.
The seas are angry today my friends.
March 10, 2021
First of all, if you know anything about sailing and all the terminology that goes along with it, then you will definitely love this story and would probably rate this much higher than the 2-stars I gave it. It is very well written with a terrific storyline, but I just didn't enjoy reading it and stayed lost in the endless sailing terminology throughout this book. Also, I found it very distracting the amount of Spanish used when they were shipwrecked in Cuba during the hurricane at the end of the book. But, hey, to each his own.
Sybil is the intuitive family slueth. She is on a mission to find out why her great-grandfather, Cyrus Braithewaite, would send his three teenage sons off alone on a brigatte out into the ocean for 3 months. Her aging Unclecousin Myles has started research on the family and began putting a book together call The Braithewaite Gathering. The purpose of this book was to be a collection of all the hidden sins of their forefathers that ultimately will predict the future downfall and curses of the family's future, which they were beginning to experience. The Bible does say, The curses of our father... Myles being a retired preacher believes the curses could be handed down through generations through our DNA. But, he is now in a wheelchair after having a stroke, he passes on all his research and family records to Sybil for her to uncover. [What a dream come true!]
There was plenty of adventure for the boys out at sea, surviving through two hurricanes and watching one of their crew, good friend and navigator, Will, die.
There are skeletons in every family history, but to find out that your half-brother is also your father would surely mess with your mind. This is what Cyrus learned of his first-born son, Lockwood, who would secretly father three sons for him through his wife Elizabeth who couldn't seem to get pregnant by Cyrus. This would send any man over the edge. Cyrus forever turned his back on his first-born and the other three boys, and on his wife, Elizabeth. Lockwood commited suicide.
Sybil is the intuitive family slueth. She is on a mission to find out why her great-grandfather, Cyrus Braithewaite, would send his three teenage sons off alone on a brigatte out into the ocean for 3 months. Her aging Unclecousin Myles has started research on the family and began putting a book together call The Braithewaite Gathering. The purpose of this book was to be a collection of all the hidden sins of their forefathers that ultimately will predict the future downfall and curses of the family's future, which they were beginning to experience. The Bible does say, The curses of our father... Myles being a retired preacher believes the curses could be handed down through generations through our DNA. But, he is now in a wheelchair after having a stroke, he passes on all his research and family records to Sybil for her to uncover. [What a dream come true!]
There was plenty of adventure for the boys out at sea, surviving through two hurricanes and watching one of their crew, good friend and navigator, Will, die.
There are skeletons in every family history, but to find out that your half-brother is also your father would surely mess with your mind. This is what Cyrus learned of his first-born son, Lockwood, who would secretly father three sons for him through his wife Elizabeth who couldn't seem to get pregnant by Cyrus. This would send any man over the edge. Cyrus forever turned his back on his first-born and the other three boys, and on his wife, Elizabeth. Lockwood commited suicide.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 29, 2009
Caputo has a new book coming out this week, Crossers, which looks intriguing, so I decided to do some homework and read one of his backlist. I am so grateful I picked this one up. It's a fascinating adventure story, sailing the Atlantic Coast of America at the turn of the century. What makes it more absorbing is the ongoing familial mystery of our main characters, three teenage boys whose father has set them to sail and told them not to return until autumn. The characters are brilliantly developed and the story twists in surprising ways. The only aspect I thought bogged the story down was the occasional interuption of future family members (namely a grandchild of one of the sons), narrating the story as it may or may not have been passed down. Whether the story was remembered accurately or not is not important to the reader; we just want to know what happens next.
March 31, 2012
"The voyage taught the lesson young men learn in battle: that the world is indifferent to our fates; that life is fragile and our grip on it tenuous; that when the great crisis comes, though we may face it bravely and act well, we are nevertheless not as brave or as good as we might have hopped"
March 30, 2020
I will start first off with the rating: I gave this four-stars because it is such a well put together novel – it is challenging as there are, for example, a lot of technical boating terms as much of the story takes place on the schooner. It is also challenging because there is a darkness throughout the story. It starts with Cyrus, the father of three boys (Nathaniel – 16 years old; Eliot, something of a wit, 15; and Drew, the scholar, 13) sends them off on his beloved schooner – the Double Eagle – telling them not to return home or go to Boston (where his wife, their mother, has gone for a medical procedure) until school is scheduled to begin again in September, that is for the entire summer. For Cyrus it is a decisive moment but the boys are baffled by their father’s seeming coldness in giving them an order, delivered in such an authoritarian manner. It marks the beginning for us of an excruciating but rewarding read.
They pick up another crew member (Will Terhune), a school mate of Nate’s and ultimately decide to sail down to the Florida Keys where there is buried treasure from a ship that their father, years ago, had tried to salvage. It is an adventurous trip and a brutal one, and forms the core of the entire book. It is not so much that we meet each of the characters individually, but see these relative innocents tossed about by the imperious and unrelenting ocean and by society as a whole. There is very little love, except for the crew’s respect for one another and their skills. As a reader though, we are pretty worried all the way through and this makes the reading quite a slough: it is never boring but it is also never easy.
Philip Caputo, the author of The Voyage, obviously put a lot of research and effort into crafting the book, and maintains suspense until the very last twenty pages or so when he slowly unravels the essence of the story. By this time we have gotten to like the boys and have developed an understanding of their mother and the rational for their father’s behaviour. It all fits like a well-made jigsaw. An excerpt from the book’s epigraph from Joseph Conrad says it all though: ‘… impenetrable and heartless the sea has given nothing of itself to the suitors of its precarious favours …’ and in a review Caputo reflects that life for some people, at least what we see of them and their families, is simply the tip of an iceberg.
I recommend The Voyage simply as a good story, well told, although it is something of a moralist’s tale: don’t keep secrets. It is good to be reminded, I think, that our actions have consequences. I write this as we are all suffering the Coronavirus-19 pandemic, and even though everything is shut down (except for the essentials: grocery stores, liquor and beer stores, Walmart and the nearby DollarStores) it is warming to see couples and families out for walks together and sense the imposed quiet – few planes, trains or automobiles about, and the environment overall feels likes it is healing. It’s Spring and the birds are back, and singing. Caputo has Sybil, a great-great-granddaughter revisiting the family history before she, just divorced, moves out West (and thus abandoning the Ocean that had formed and developed the family) tell us why that there is this sense that this once great, dynamic and prosperous family is no more, although there remain many members of it scattered about who do arrange to meet annually, and that the core that had once given it its power and meaning appears to be no more.
I guess to some degree it is an Original sin story. But as Caputo says in an interview I mention below ‘The brutality in these stories gives the tenderness meaning. As there can be no faith without doubt, no courage without fear, so there cannot be redemption without sin’. Although I have to wonder that if Philip Caputo wrote such a story today he might have to acknowledge the argument that the Devil made me do it – “how could I resist the Devil when I can’t resist a man?” – might today sway an otherwise angry and disappointed God. One has the sense though that Caputo (in 1999 when he wrote the book, and when he was 58 years old) was practicing the Alice Munro / Hemingway “Iceberg” theory about writing: as an iceberg derives its power from the parts of it that are submerged, a work of fiction is stronger for what is implied rather than stated directly (see 2019 National Book Review interview with Philip Caputo).
Although women are prominent in the telling of the story and in the centrality of the drama, it is a man’s book conceived and written by a man, as Philip Caputo reflects in the NBR interview mentioned above, raised by ‘(his) father, the Jesuits and Marine drill sergeants’. A couple of excellent reviews can be found at these sites: Kirkus May 2010 Review of The Voyage) and, for a longer one, at Random House Book Club review of the book.
Edwin
They pick up another crew member (Will Terhune), a school mate of Nate’s and ultimately decide to sail down to the Florida Keys where there is buried treasure from a ship that their father, years ago, had tried to salvage. It is an adventurous trip and a brutal one, and forms the core of the entire book. It is not so much that we meet each of the characters individually, but see these relative innocents tossed about by the imperious and unrelenting ocean and by society as a whole. There is very little love, except for the crew’s respect for one another and their skills. As a reader though, we are pretty worried all the way through and this makes the reading quite a slough: it is never boring but it is also never easy.
Philip Caputo, the author of The Voyage, obviously put a lot of research and effort into crafting the book, and maintains suspense until the very last twenty pages or so when he slowly unravels the essence of the story. By this time we have gotten to like the boys and have developed an understanding of their mother and the rational for their father’s behaviour. It all fits like a well-made jigsaw. An excerpt from the book’s epigraph from Joseph Conrad says it all though: ‘… impenetrable and heartless the sea has given nothing of itself to the suitors of its precarious favours …’ and in a review Caputo reflects that life for some people, at least what we see of them and their families, is simply the tip of an iceberg.
I recommend The Voyage simply as a good story, well told, although it is something of a moralist’s tale: don’t keep secrets. It is good to be reminded, I think, that our actions have consequences. I write this as we are all suffering the Coronavirus-19 pandemic, and even though everything is shut down (except for the essentials: grocery stores, liquor and beer stores, Walmart and the nearby DollarStores) it is warming to see couples and families out for walks together and sense the imposed quiet – few planes, trains or automobiles about, and the environment overall feels likes it is healing. It’s Spring and the birds are back, and singing. Caputo has Sybil, a great-great-granddaughter revisiting the family history before she, just divorced, moves out West (and thus abandoning the Ocean that had formed and developed the family) tell us why that there is this sense that this once great, dynamic and prosperous family is no more, although there remain many members of it scattered about who do arrange to meet annually, and that the core that had once given it its power and meaning appears to be no more.
I guess to some degree it is an Original sin story. But as Caputo says in an interview I mention below ‘The brutality in these stories gives the tenderness meaning. As there can be no faith without doubt, no courage without fear, so there cannot be redemption without sin’. Although I have to wonder that if Philip Caputo wrote such a story today he might have to acknowledge the argument that the Devil made me do it – “how could I resist the Devil when I can’t resist a man?” – might today sway an otherwise angry and disappointed God. One has the sense though that Caputo (in 1999 when he wrote the book, and when he was 58 years old) was practicing the Alice Munro / Hemingway “Iceberg” theory about writing: as an iceberg derives its power from the parts of it that are submerged, a work of fiction is stronger for what is implied rather than stated directly (see 2019 National Book Review interview with Philip Caputo).
Although women are prominent in the telling of the story and in the centrality of the drama, it is a man’s book conceived and written by a man, as Philip Caputo reflects in the NBR interview mentioned above, raised by ‘(his) father, the Jesuits and Marine drill sergeants’. A couple of excellent reviews can be found at these sites: Kirkus May 2010 Review of The Voyage) and, for a longer one, at Random House Book Club review of the book.
Edwin
August 11, 2017
This book has one foot in the present following a women trying to fill in the gaps of an old family history and another foot in the past telling that old story of three brothers mysteriously sent to sea for the summer by a stern and unfathomable father. Although other reviewers were impatient with that distraction, I found the book much richer and more interesting because of the author's weaving of the coming-of-age seafaring tale with the more modern quest trying to piece together the buried story and understand the family character from which it sprang.
January 8, 2021
I would have given it a better rating, if it weren’t for the last quarter of the book...it didn’t jive for me with the tone of the book up to that point.
July 15, 2017
This is a surprisingly audacious and satisfying read. With more secrets revealed than in the Trump Whitehouse, this page-turner unmasks a family's century-old history while also providing nearly a tourists' guide to sailing the southern Atlantic. Great for a summer's escape.
October 20, 2020
Wow, what an excellent adventure story! I really enjoyed reading the tales of three young men sailing down the East Coast in/around 1900. It was particularly interesting for me, since the story begins in Blue Hill, Maine (I was on vacation near there this past summer); stops in South Carolina (where I lived in college) and again in the Florida Keys (and I'm a Floridian). I know that some of my enjoyment came from my familiarity with these locations. If I knew anything about sailing a boat, I would have enjoyed it even more.
The only reason why this doesn't get five stars is what I would call the wrapping Caputo put on the story. It would have been excellent had it simply been a family adventure story, but we are introduced to the tale by a current-day descendent, a family researcher who apparently can divine the past from small bits of information. At first this was intriguing, but it's weird - we meet the descendent in the beginning of the book, and then we really don't know her again until the epilogue. The epilogue is awful. It tells a completely different story of family politics and racism, and I honestly could not finish it. I really wish all of that had been edited (along with the visit to the aunt in S.C., which stood out as a particularly odd passage and relates to nothing else in the book until you reach the epilogue.) I can't understand why the book is organized this way; it's not necessary. The intrigue about the boys' parents is interesting, but why tell the story this way? Maybe to make it more than just an adventure tale? But honestly, the adventure tale is so good... why mess with a good thing?
So: loved the book, but not as much as I might have if that other stuff hadn't been in there. It was just so incongruous.
The only reason why this doesn't get five stars is what I would call the wrapping Caputo put on the story. It would have been excellent had it simply been a family adventure story, but we are introduced to the tale by a current-day descendent, a family researcher who apparently can divine the past from small bits of information. At first this was intriguing, but it's weird - we meet the descendent in the beginning of the book, and then we really don't know her again until the epilogue. The epilogue is awful. It tells a completely different story of family politics and racism, and I honestly could not finish it. I really wish all of that had been edited (along with the visit to the aunt in S.C., which stood out as a particularly odd passage and relates to nothing else in the book until you reach the epilogue.) I can't understand why the book is organized this way; it's not necessary. The intrigue about the boys' parents is interesting, but why tell the story this way? Maybe to make it more than just an adventure tale? But honestly, the adventure tale is so good... why mess with a good thing?
So: loved the book, but not as much as I might have if that other stuff hadn't been in there. It was just so incongruous.
August 26, 2017
This is a re-read of the first of Philip Caputo’s books that I read. I liked it for a lot of reasons, probably the first of which that the story was unique. Although it could be called a coming of age story, the time period and circumstances of having the story take place at sea and involve a mystery about the family were quite unusual. I liked the way the story progressed. Reading it now after I have some perspective as a writer, I also thought the structure (narrator piecing together family history, yet telling it through the eyes of the boys while breaking all the point-of-view rules) was intriguing. While at first it was disturbing, by the time I got to the end I thought it was the best way to tell this story and admired the writer’s courage in doing it his way. Some have said it is overwritten, and perhaps it is, but that didn’t bother me either, as I thoroughly enjoyed the detail.
February 19, 2021
This book was much more of an adventure than I'd anticipated, including the dark and unexpected family secret. It delivers the heart-rending story of three boys who mature into young men through life-threatening danger and tragedy. The first chapters seemed slow, but I view them as character introductions and an opportunity to give the reader the lay of the land, which is actually the sea.
There are many nautical terms that can either try one's patience or be an education into the world of sailing.The book must be taken as a whole, probably like any other.
I would enjoy a movie of this story. I found it well worth the read.
There are many nautical terms that can either try one's patience or be an education into the world of sailing.The book must be taken as a whole, probably like any other.
I would enjoy a movie of this story. I found it well worth the read.
December 10, 2010
A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for
July 21, 2013
Great read, well done and he weaves in personal histories just when you have it all figured out!
September 14, 2023
I thought highly of the three other books by Caputo that I read. Not so much this one. It had it's moments, especially the last 20-25% of it that resolved why Cyrus Braithwaite sent his three sons on a three-month trip to wherever they chose. A college friend who lived nearby came along with them. They were all relatively experienced sailors, from age thirteen through twenty. Nathaniel, the oldest, took charge as skipper of the forty-six foot well-appointed schooner. It left from Maine in June 1901 and eventually headed into two storms.
As the cover blurb reveals, they headed to the Florida Keys. That's where a hurricane destroyed the ship. My problems with the book were multifaceted. It could have been much faster paced. Caputo might have depicted the conflicts among the sons perhaps fifty or sixty fewer times. The story seemed intended to be read by owners of sailboats, yachts, and other nautical experts. Maybe the blurb could have included that. For example, the author took pains to tell the reader what sails were raised, lowered or adjusted in the face of storms. Sextants, sea anchors, and many more tools, cables, kedges, storm oil, etc., played their parts. Interesting? No—not to the uninformed reader.
The main dramatic value came from issues with racial history—the North and the South, slavery, extended generational family problems, and who married who why and when. Those factors finally came to resolution at the end—with little in the way of foreshadowing throughout the lengthy book. Perhaps it's unfair to criticize a book of historical fiction from a failure that would doom a mystery. Yet, setting up a puzzle at the outset and offering nothing in the way of clues along the way made it difficult to finish. I kept hoping for something. I almost gave up on the book well short of the end. Even then, the denouement left me unsatisfied. It had to be sad; not a happy ending.
As the cover blurb reveals, they headed to the Florida Keys. That's where a hurricane destroyed the ship. My problems with the book were multifaceted. It could have been much faster paced. Caputo might have depicted the conflicts among the sons perhaps fifty or sixty fewer times. The story seemed intended to be read by owners of sailboats, yachts, and other nautical experts. Maybe the blurb could have included that. For example, the author took pains to tell the reader what sails were raised, lowered or adjusted in the face of storms. Sextants, sea anchors, and many more tools, cables, kedges, storm oil, etc., played their parts. Interesting? No—not to the uninformed reader.
The main dramatic value came from issues with racial history—the North and the South, slavery, extended generational family problems, and who married who why and when. Those factors finally came to resolution at the end—with little in the way of foreshadowing throughout the lengthy book. Perhaps it's unfair to criticize a book of historical fiction from a failure that would doom a mystery. Yet, setting up a puzzle at the outset and offering nothing in the way of clues along the way made it difficult to finish. I kept hoping for something. I almost gave up on the book well short of the end. Even then, the denouement left me unsatisfied. It had to be sad; not a happy ending.
May 21, 2023
Book Review: The Voyage, by Philip Caputo
Where to begin? The main segment, 375 pages of it, is a brilliantly written and erudite but confusing series of vivid short stories connecting the lives and adventures of three brothers who set out on a voyage on the family schooner, the Double Eagle - a 46-footer and very nicely made boat. They end up taking along a family friend who serves as the navigator and seek to understand Cyrus, their aloof and cold New England Yankee father who thereafter simply vanishes and does not make contact with them any longer. Their adventures include the usual side-stories of stops along the way and storms at sea, plus an unusually severe hurricane. So far, so good, although it's hard to see where all this leads.
The reader surely could use a family tree, but that would give away the plot, which is complex. It peels away slowly (sort of) as it unfolds in the 36-page epilogue. which is told by a female member of the family, when she tries to untangle and understand her ancestors, including the brothers' mother who was a southern belle from South Carolina. Along the way, several interesting characters are developed including Artemis, a mixed-race Bahamian who worked for the father as a diver when Cyrus was a treasure hunter who salvaged maritime wrecks. The main character, other than the brothers themselves, is Lockwood, who is their half-brother, but as the story develops, is more.
The story sort of (for me) jumps off tracks a bit when Will develops a relationship with a Cuban girl. Stranded in Cuba, the boys contact an American diplomat in Cuba who helps them return to the US and eventually to Boston. This is a complex story, with an ingenious plot which is unspooled long after the main characters are dead. It takes some dedication to keep up with it, but the effort is worth it.
Where to begin? The main segment, 375 pages of it, is a brilliantly written and erudite but confusing series of vivid short stories connecting the lives and adventures of three brothers who set out on a voyage on the family schooner, the Double Eagle - a 46-footer and very nicely made boat. They end up taking along a family friend who serves as the navigator and seek to understand Cyrus, their aloof and cold New England Yankee father who thereafter simply vanishes and does not make contact with them any longer. Their adventures include the usual side-stories of stops along the way and storms at sea, plus an unusually severe hurricane. So far, so good, although it's hard to see where all this leads.
The reader surely could use a family tree, but that would give away the plot, which is complex. It peels away slowly (sort of) as it unfolds in the 36-page epilogue. which is told by a female member of the family, when she tries to untangle and understand her ancestors, including the brothers' mother who was a southern belle from South Carolina. Along the way, several interesting characters are developed including Artemis, a mixed-race Bahamian who worked for the father as a diver when Cyrus was a treasure hunter who salvaged maritime wrecks. The main character, other than the brothers themselves, is Lockwood, who is their half-brother, but as the story develops, is more.
The story sort of (for me) jumps off tracks a bit when Will develops a relationship with a Cuban girl. Stranded in Cuba, the boys contact an American diplomat in Cuba who helps them return to the US and eventually to Boston. This is a complex story, with an ingenious plot which is unspooled long after the main characters are dead. It takes some dedication to keep up with it, but the effort is worth it.
August 19, 2023
I see in my review of Philip Caputo’s Vietnam War memoir A Rumor of War that in an afterword he wrote he “did not want to tell anyone about the war but to show it …”—alas, would that it were so here, for here the story is overly long and overtold in long dense paragraphs (well written, but too much in them), a pity since the makings of a powerful gothic story of an old New England family and its closet skeletons are certainly present. The voyage, ordered by the family patriarch, is that of three teenaged brothers with a college-aged family friend in the summer of 1901 manning by themselves the family’s sailing vessel down the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida and Cuba. Along the way, there are some well-done settings and scenes with interesting characters in New York City, coastal South Carolina, and the Florida Keys that hint at some mysteries in the family history, and there are good historical social and cultural background settings from the Civil War to the early 20th century as well. But there is also just a lot of telling about sailing, shipboard life, weather (though some important plot-related storms), family, sibling relationships, etc, and the distance between the novel’s opening and its epilogue, in which a descendant of the family proposes some answers to the family’s mysteries 100 years later, diluted the story’s power and was too great for it to cohere for me (by the time I got to the epilogue, I had forgotten about this descendant’s family history research). Just 3 stars—this was published 24 years ago, and I wonder if editors at today’s publishers would have honed and streamlined this down a bit, for I seldom meet the issues I found here in newly published novels I read these days.
August 6, 2022
This is a story of 3 teenagers (16, 15, and 13) during the turn of the 1900's who are sent out on their father's schooner and told to not return until September with no explanation. They had had boating experience growing up with their father, Cyrus, and thus the story of them sailing from Maine to the Florida Keys sounds a little more plausible. I enjoyed their adventures and fortitude while sailing down the Coast. Their experience in the hurricane is very exciting, though perhaps a little lengthy in description. In some places the story seemed to drag on. But, for me, the last part of the book, especially the Epilogue was very interesting. It actually turns into an ancestral hunt for family secrets by the great granddaughter of Cyrus, the father of the teens.
August 31, 2017
Historical fiction set at the turn of the 20th century (1900 or so), about a family with deep dark secrets and four boys (three Braithewaite brothers plus a friend, aged 13 to 19) with dreams of glory, love, adventure. They begin a 3-month journey in a schooner from Maine to Cuba as relatively naive and protected boys and end it much more worldly-wise, wearier, and still unaware of the Braithewaite family secrets, which great-granddaughter Sybil, living in Arizona in the 1990s, tries to piece together from scrapbooks, letters, the ship's log. Fascinating and definitely worth the read, and I say that as one who doesn't much like historical fiction or sea tales.
November 3, 2022
Good story, but i felt the writing was very uneven. Way too many nautical references for a landlubber like me, it only bogged down the pace of the action. I almost gave up on this one a few times, but kept saying to myself, i gotta get to the part that reveals this big ‘ family secret’!! (Imho, not really worth the wait)
Overall, very disappointing- i debated whether to give this book only 2 stars, but since it did have its moments, i gave it three. If you’re someone who knows boats and sailing, you will probably appreciate the attention to boating details the author provided, but less would have been more for me.
Overall, very disappointing- i debated whether to give this book only 2 stars, but since it did have its moments, i gave it three. If you’re someone who knows boats and sailing, you will probably appreciate the attention to boating details the author provided, but less would have been more for me.
February 15, 2019
This book had a reeeeeeeeally slow-burning start, and it was a pretty heavy read, but I'm glad I stuck with it to the end; it was a lot better than I expected. Has some traces of "Absalom, Absalom!" in it, among other curious literary references. There were a couple of things that were silly or outlandish, and the nautical terms were occasionally hard to follow, but they didn't overwhelm the book's better qualities. The characters were incredibly well-developed, and there were a lot of deep, meaningful thoughts and reflections.
April 8, 2018
Philip Caputo certainly can write - and in all different forms. This is a novel, about a family and about the sea. Whilst it possibly goes into too much detail about the intricacies of sailing. the writing is impeccable and at times, especially during the storms at sea, vivid and thrilling. The plot structure is a bit complex, dealing as it does with a multitude of generations, but the final plot twists are quite brilliant. I will read anything that Caputo writes!
November 6, 2019
Well...that was a trip. I didn't entirely know what to expect from this book and it was certainly a voyage. I appreciated Caputo's research in nautical terms and sea chanteys to add to the authenticity of the story. As someone who has sailed, all those details are why this has 4 stars for me. I also found the hurricane scene to be powerful. The way he interwove the Braithwaite boys' tale with Sybil's family history research didn't quite land plausibly for me, but I enjoyed the book nonetheless.
March 23, 2022
It started so well. Perhaps a bit too much about sailing and the details yet even that was somewhat interesting. Then they arrived at Key West - and the story took a steep nosedive. I just couldn't put myself thru any more of the dialect of a primary character, the sailing details, just - everything. Book is well-written, just an exhausting read for me.
July 4, 2018
This book was amazing on so many levels. For those who know sailing ships, the descriptions at sea are so vivid that I swear I could feel the sea spray on my face! Well-written, it's a harrowing tale of family, love, class and betrayal with complex characters.
March 17, 2020
How Could This Happen
Strongly recommend this book to those who are well versed in sailing, rigging, and general sea speak. An unassuming trip of brothers take to the sea, alone, because dad said so.
Strongly recommend this book to those who are well versed in sailing, rigging, and general sea speak. An unassuming trip of brothers take to the sea, alone, because dad said so.
February 3, 2018
opposite of chick flick : - )
August 1, 2018
Best book I have read this year.
March 9, 2019
Fantastic journey. One of the greatest adventures I have ever read. Cannot recommend this book enough. Read it!
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