Set Adrift: A Mystery and a Memoir – My Family's Disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle

by Sarah Conover

A Tragic Loss, an Orphaned Childhood, and the Eventual Unstorying of a Life

In January, 1958, a renowned sailing family was lost in a storm in the Bermuda Triangle. The youngest of two daughters, Sarah, suddenly an orphan, grew up never knowing her parents and grandparents. As an adult, she began to pursue the mystery of her family and their disappearance, and discovered that their stories were far different from the versions she was told. Sarah Conover's memoir follows the national media's investigation of the Revonoc's vanishing, and exposes the truths that led her to "unstory" the family history, creating a new understanding of their lives, and hers.

Set Adrift weaves Conover's superbly written memoir with interviews, magazine articles, and official Coast Guard reports to chart her fascinating life story. While still infants, she and her sister were the subjects of a custody battle between their grandmother, Mere, and their eventual adoptive parents, Fran and Dick, whose lives, and those of their lost parents and grandparents, were shrouded in myths born of the fight for the girls' affections. Later, Sarah created her own life, and through her personal growth was able to explore the lives of her ancestors, ultimately realizing the truth about both them, and those who remained. Set Adrift begins as a story about loss and loneliness, but blossoms into one of love and belonging.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Mystery

348 pages, Paperback

Published February 27, 2023

About the author

Sarah Conover holds a BA in comparative religions from the University of Colorado, and an MFA in creative writing from Eastern Washington University. She has worked as a television producer for PBS and Internews (an international media NGO), a social worker for Catholic Charities, a public school teacher, and taught creative writing through the community colleges of Spokane, Washington. She is the author of six books on world wisdom traditions and spirituality published by Skinner House Books, the educational publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Her poetry, essays and interviews have been published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies. She is a feature writer and columnist for Tricycle Magazine: the Buddhist Review and has taught meditation for many years at Airway Heights Corrections Center and within the Spokane community.

Ms. Conover was a recipient of Washington State’s Grants for Artist’s Projects (GAP grant) and writing fellowships from the Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, Wyoming, and the Willapa Bay Artist Residence Program in Oysterville, Washington. She lives in a condo in Spokane, Washington and in her beloved yurtiverse at the base of the North Cascades in Winthrop, Washington, where she and her husband are building a small hermitage for monastic retreats.

Reviews

[Elizabeth George]

This book--a memoir-- packs a punch. The author's parents and paternal grandparents were sailing in the area of Miami and the Keys when a huge storm developed, one that they did not anticipate. They were sailing without a radio on board and without a phone. Although the grandfather was an expert and highly regarded yachtsman, his yacht was not a match for the storm. It went down, was (so far) lost, and not only were there no survivors, but the only remnant of anything having gone wrong at all was the yacht's dinghy found days later washed up on shore. The author was 18 months old at the time. She recounts the story of this loss through interviews with family members, friends of her parents and her grandparents, her sibling Aileen, her aunt who became her mother, and her cousins who became her other siblings. It's a gripping story on its own, but what makes it profound is the unpeeling of the onion of avoided grief on the part of the author. In writing the memoir, she also comes face to face with why she spent so much of her life on the run from reflecting upon that early trauma and what that early trauma did to her ability to sit with herself and just experience the common joys of being alive. It's an excellent book, and I highly recommed it.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

This I have come to believe: when a boat goes down, it’s only the shell of things — the hull and the bodies — that vanish. When there are no survivors and no meaningful recovery of wreckage, there’s only speculation, the barest possibility of ever knowing what happened, and the legacies of unresolved grief. The absence of the dead shapes the story of the living.

Some memoirs satisfy with their uncommon tales, some satisfy with their thoughtful analysis of the common human story, and every once in a while, I discover a memoir that combines each of these elements with beautiful language and I find myself moved and enlightened in a way that it would be hard for a novel to match. Set Adrift is one such rare gem: Sarah Conover was a toddler when she and her sister were orphaned by a family yachting accident, and as her grandparents, in particular, were persons of note in the community, Conover is able to explore both the public record of their disappearance and her own private struggle with growing up — always feeling like as an orphan — in the middle of a large and broken family. I was fascinated by everything here — Conover shares much about her situation that was surprising to me — and I am enlarged by having learned of her journey to wholeness. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

For years, I blithely summarized the accident and its aftermath in careless shorthand to others: My parents, Lori and Larry Conover, grandparents, Harvey and Dorothy Conover, as well as family friend Bill Fluegelman, drowned during a freak storm in the Bermuda Triangle. My parents left behind two young orphans — my sister Aileen, almost three at the time, and me, eighteen months old. People would look to me for some clue as to how I felt but would find little in my affect to guide them. I’d been schooled in dissociation and numbness: no Conover ever spoke of the perishing. None of my parents’ generation could bear this cataclysmic break in their lives.

The Conovers were an uncommonly experienced boating family: Sarah’s grandfather, Harry Conover, was a competitive sailor for over fifty-five years (rated among the top dozen ocean-racing yachtsmen of his time, he “collected a lot of silverware”), he spent time as the Commodore of the Cruising Club of America, and made his fortune co-founding a publishing company that put out Yachting Magazine (among other titles). So when his highly admired yacht, the Revonoc, disappeared in a freak squall on the short jaunt from the Florida Keys to Miami on January 1, 1958, it sparked a vast search and rescue operation that was covered in the national news. No sign of the yacht or its wreckage — other than its dinghy, which washed ashore on a relative's beach — would ever be found. Because this was such a high-profile disappearance, Conover is able to quote from sources as varied as Sports Illustrated and the official Coast Guard reports (including the government’s official stance on the Bermuda Triangle itself: perfectly explainable factors can cause sudden storms), and I found everything about exploring the mysterious disappearance to be highly interesting.

What is an orphan’s story if she has no memory of her origins? Say the word aloud: or-phan. The mouth warms and wombs the first syllable, or, possessing it momentarily. Then, teeth against the bottom lip while squeezing the diaphragm hard. Phan. The word pushes into the surrounding emptiness, landing nowhere.

On a more personal level, Conover describes how she and her sister were adopted into her father’s sister’s family — a decision that would be challenged for years by her maternal grandmother — and the chaos that this unleashed in her aunt’s family. Despite genuine love and maternal concern from their adoptive mother (and from their new father, too, until that marriage dissolved under the strain), Sarah in particular felt like an orphan her entire life; and especially because her grandmother always insisted that she didn’t belong with the Conovers anymore. But through a love of nature, a spiritual embrace of Buddhism, and continuing education (that would lead to an MFA in Creative Writing), Conover was eventually able to make sense of her journey and find a way to “unstory” her life as an orphan.

We become the people we think we are — that’s why stories can be dangerous and even self-defeating. Other people can also become who we think they are and that’s why stories can be disastrous. We can’t help but use stories to connect, but beware, stories will use us. They did me, that is, until they didn’t.

Simply the perfect blend of interesting facts and heart-felt introspection; a novel could not do better at capturing what it means to be human.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Conover's parents and grandparents were all lost at sea during a major storm when she was a very small child. Her memoir explores the meanings of family, love, motherhood, and loss in a unique way. Told in vignettes, Conover discusses the impact of the tragedy on her family's lives and how it affected her deeply. The second half of the book dove into Buddhist thought as Conover attempted to come to terms with the loss and lifelong narratives that she grew up with.

This was beautifully written, with passages so pure and piercing that I had to set aside the book and contemplate the words for several minutes. However, it felt a bit repetitive, with the author continually asking the same questions and trying to find different answers, until I found myself impatient for the story to end. Perhaps it would have benefited from editing out 50 pages or more to sharpen it up a bit. Otherwise, a very moving book.

Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for the eARC.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard review to write. When I chose to read it, I thought Set Adrift would have more information about the disappearance of the yacht, but (spoiler alert) there is virtually nothing because virtually nothing is known. It disappeared. A dinghy was found. But the yacht and the people lost with it never were. The subtitle is “a Mystery and a Memoir” – it might have been better called “an Unsolved Mystery and a Memoir” or just “a Memoir.”

This reads like a therapy diary. I hate to be critical of someone’s attempts to work through their childhood trauma, but the narrative is all over the place. The transcripts of the author’s attempts to interview family members are uncomfortable and not illuminating. The author seems to be trying to force some kind of resolution where no resolution is going to be found.

Her memories are definitely not reliable, and family members, especially her adopted dad, don't seem to get fair treatment. There’s a lot of mental running in circles. There’s a lot of trying to make the Bermuda Triangle into more than it is. Despite being not yet two when her parents died, and being raised by an aunt and uncle along with her older sister, the author really leans into her primary identity as an orphan.

If you are working through trauma, or are trying to find your own answers through religion or meditation, you may find Set Adrift of interest. I'm sorry the author lost her parents and grandparents at such a young age and in such tragic and unresolved circumstances, but I had no patience with her, especially with her need to push family members to places they didn't want to go. Good thing I was not her therapist.

I read an advance reader copy of Set Adrift from Netgalley.

[BonBon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Conover’s honesty, humor, and grace illuminate her exploration of the oceanic depths that claimed her family in Set Adrift: My Family’s Disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle, a Mystery and a Memoir. Investigative journalist, poet, and writer’s writer, she describes how she uncovered family myths distorted by trauma. Psychological and spiritual rigor inform her discovery about her prominent New York family and reveal wisdom about “the story of her suffering.” A powerful and unforgettable reading experience.

[Jay Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great memoir! I really enjoyed this book.

Very well-written, Conover has a way with words!

While the accident that took her parents is indeed a mystery, I was hoping that the mystery would be solved, or at least partly solved, in this book. That was not to happen. This is a real-life mystery, so it's not like the author could just make up a solution. It was just a little disappointing that nothing new was revealed.

As a memoir, however, Set Adrift is very good. Conover's life was changed forever, even though the driving event happened when she was very job. The author does a great job showing how the loss of her parents affected the entirety of her life.

Highly recommended for memoir fans.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love reading personal stories that are outside my experiences. The emotional themes are relatable and the story itself reads like drama, intrique and mystery. For an emotional and self awareness journey that does not rap her life in a pretty bow, it is an important addition to your "to read" booklist".

[Janalyn, the blind reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Sarah Conover was just a baby the most important adults in the little girls life went on a sailing trip in the family yacht and although her grandfather who was a skilled yachtsman and sailor and had survived many storms at sea was on board this time the ship would not return and her family would be lost to her forever. Every family member had their own account of what happened during that sad time but regardless of whether it made a huge mark or no mark at all it seems everyone close to the tragedy wouldn’t get out unscathed. Where one of her cousins barely remembers that time another feels like she was put upon by her mother who Sarah and her sister went to live with. The whole time poor Sarah had no memories of that time at all. She wouldn’t remember the accident then going missing Norwood she remember her parents and that is what this book is about. In this book she reconstructs the accident and gets its meaning testimonies of those who remember that time. What I love most about this book is when she puts down other peoples words you can clearly tell that it is verbatim what they told her and I love that because most authors will reconstruct what others say to make it more fanciful but not the case with Set Adrift by Sarah Conover this is a sad tale told by its smallest victim and it is a compelling and highly intriguing read. This book feels like an honest and as if it was told with the upmost truthful intentions by the author which in my opinion isn’t always the case. I am not a big fan of autobiographies but I am a big fan of this one. I receive this book from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

[Monica Mac · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very powerful story indeed.

Sarah Conover lost her parents and her grandparents when she was only a toddler and has no memory of any of them. So, she pieces the story of HER from whatever sources she can get.

The author intersperses interviews that she conducted with various family members and friends as well as newspaper articles of the disappearance of the Conover family yacht.

I don't even know how you can possibly cope with something so awful happening to you and losing all those very special people in one foul swoop. Somehow, you just have to keep on putting one foot in front of the other and keep on going, which is exactly what she did.

The uncle and aunt who brought her and her sister up are clearly exceptional human beings. I don't like the sound of Mere, the grandmother who went for custody of Sarah and her sister, one little bit. She sounds a bit too much like my own mother who is all about what SHE wants and never mind what the right thing is.

Interesting that with the interviewing of the family members that Sarah gets a different perspective on her life and her family dynamics. I am glad she was open to listening to everyone and that she worked so hard to process what had happened. Her husband sounds like a really special guy :)

5 stars from me.

Thank you to NetGalley and 55 Fathoms Publishing.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loss, Memory, and the UnStory

Set Adrift: A Mystery and a Memoir – My Family's Disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle

If you have ever suffered a loss, a tremendous loss, Sarah Conover’s Set Adrift (A Mystery and a Memoir: My Family’s Disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle), released by 55 Fathoms Publishing LLC on June 27, 2023, illustrates ways you can attempt to make it through your own tragedies. If you haven’t lost big—and here’s hoping you never do – the book tells a fascinating story about a sailing family. It begins with our boarding their 43-foot yacht for a frightening, catastrophic, and as yet unsolved mystery about a New Year’s 1958 sailing trip through what was the worst unpredicted “storm in the forty-seven-year history of the Miami weather bureau” (p. 8) prior to that date.

Five sailors – Conover’s paternal grandparents, parents, and a friend of her father’s—are lost in this storm which wasn’t even forecast until almost the hour it struck. Those on board were captained by magazine publisher Harvey Conover (as in Conover-Mast Publications), a “skilled yachtsman, the Commodore of the Cruising Club of America, and a participant in many ocean-going races” (p. 304) and they sailed aboard his almost new, beautifully designed and built yawl, the Revonoc, fifth in a series with the same name that he owned.
When the boat didn’t return when expected, a massive search ensued that stretched from Cape Hatteras in the north to the Yucatan in the south. All that was found was the Revonoc Jr, the yacht’s dinghy. Evidence showed that it was ripped from the vessel by a tremendous force. At least 40-foot waves and 70 mph winds had been reported.

Conover was 18 months old, barely a toddler. Now orphans, she and her 3-year-old sister Aileen became members of her father’s sister Fran’s already existing family of four. Fran, like the rest of the Conovers, loved sailing, even during a storm, and, like her lost family, was known for singing in full voice at the top of a storm or in her comfortable home kitchen. A soprano herself, she encouraged her niece to join in as alto.

There is much to like and admire about the Conover extended family, as well as much to question and wonder about. The girls’ maternal grandmother Mere is also a mixed character. Conover must face and attempt to decipher all the family dysfunction both sides present as she becomes an adult, in order to meet her family head on and understand what exactly she lost. We see truths through Conover’s eyes, and trust her as our narrator, but some pieces she adds to the family puzzle and her interpretations of them make us wonder about her view of her family and the world, too. As she wrote in the Prologue (p. 4), “torn from our trust in life, we orbit the absence.” And thus, we begin the search for home and family along with her. She hopes to claim her family and home, and also to be claimed by a family and a homeplace.

It is not the Revonoc which is adrift. It is gone. Disappeared. It is Sarah Conover and all the others left behind by the Revonoc’s demise that are lost.
Clues are few and far between, but the author strives to find even the smallest hint of what exactly she has lost and who, exactly, she resembles. I rejoiced in each clue she found, and in her determined steadfast hope to find more.

The book has its own format and secrets, like the lost family on the Revonoc. Particularly interesting is the repetition of chapter titles. Perhaps instead of chapters, they are brief important slashes at the truth. The longest chapters are 3 or 4 pages.

For example, the author as a person is not only a constant questioner whom Mom Fran nicknamed the “Why Kid,” but is also always on the move, searching for her family and home, listening, looking, climbing mountains, skiing down a steep slope, moving from place to place, trying out different boyfriends and religions, and dancing like her mother Lori. She’s a person who always has an escape plan at the ready and leaves before anyone else can. I counted more than 15 short sections entitled “Hold Still.” Through experience and the study of Buddhism she knows she must slow down but struggles to do this. Throughout the book she works to understand why she cannot.

She builds and retrieves where possible her actual or adopted memories, and as she continues to seek the truth, any truth to fill the holes her losses have left behind, she comes to learn that “Memory is a painting, not a photograph.” (p. 150) And further that “Memory is not the storing of the past, but a storying of the past.” (p. 236)

Toward the end of the book, readers will discover the unstorying, the way to look at each of our mysteries and better understand and accept them. I love Conover’s concept of the unstory, and her encouragement to us to listen and look and see what might really be before as well as behind us. Can she/we slow down? Will she/we learn to listen and to see or at least continue to attempt to do so?

Trust—a form of truth—is important to this author. I came to trust her as I read her book and believe you will trust and enjoy her as I did. Like the rest of the Conovers, she has a sense of humor. Like them she is also brave and determined.

P.S. The History Channel has interviewed Conover and some of her family, viewed and studied with them family films of the Renovoc and other materials, and is preparing to release a documentary about the event and the family to be part of their series Into the Bermuda Triangle: The Cursed Waters. The episode will air between Thanksgiving and the New Year. To learn the date and time it will be shown, my plan is to check the author’s website (https://www.sarahconover.com/) in the late fall and I’ll bet we’ll find the information there.

P.P.S. If you, like me, are curious to learn more about Conover’s “unstory” theory, check out her “The Unstory Corps” (sarahconover.substack.com).

[Thomas Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

January 1958 the author and her sister lose both their one set of grandparents and their biological parents at the same time by unfathomable tragedy at sea. A situation that seems impossible with Grandpa Harvey Conover being a trophied ocean yachtsman who even qualified for Olympic trials. This was such a big story that it was even covered by Sports Illustrated magazine. There are two story lines to follow one is the search for the family members and yacht at sea and what happened. The second is the impact on the various family members left to pick up the pieces. Overnight the author being 18 months old and her sister being 3 years old had an aunt and Uncle that became Mother and Father, the fight between family members to take care of the girls with the believe that money was a driving factor, the impact on the aunt and uncles' biological children's who were kind of pushed aside with the addition of more children. In the beginning the two sisters are there for each other but overtime their life becomes more of a competition. There are snippets throughout the story that come from newspapers, news reports and coast guard reports relating to the search (you will have to read the story to see if they find them). All through the book the author wanders various places learn about many different religions trying to find as she says a place and a tribe to be a part of. One heads up to the reader do not go into this book thinking that the main focus is about the search for the family and yacht that is a small part of this story. Regardless this is a good read.

[Cherie Dellwo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before I leave the library I always check the new non fiction area. I saw the name Sarah Conover and thought, "Is that the same Sarah Conover who used to do hand stands at preschool co-op? I checked it out and sure enough. Set Adrift is a beautifully written and well laid out memoir and exploration of the flotsam of the her life after being orphaned at a very young age. Although very few of us are orphaned, many experience other challenges Sarah writes of: questions about our families, the destruction alcoholism visits upon family life, living with family members who are not our actual parents, the mystery and beauty brought by a family member who has been damaged by life or suffers from mental illness, wondering where we belong, figuring out where did we come from, why are we here, where are we going in this great universe.

[Deb Gore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Waited a long time to read this book and it did not disappoint! The author did a fantastic job keeping my interest by weaving her own personal memories as well as those of family members alongside timely journalistic accounts of rescue efforts and the Bermuda triangle. Such a unique story of how a tragic event ripples through a family, each member's life trajectory affected. This book catalyzed thoughtful reflection on family, grief, and most importantly the power of our personal narrative. Does this narrative control us or do we have the option to change and let go at some point? Grateful for the opportunity to preview this and excited to share with others, as I look forward to the discussions it will generate. Thank you, Sarah, for offering us this exciting and haunting story!

[Dianne McMahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read almost half of the book,just couldn't bring myself to finish.
The book kept losing me,as it kept returning to the past & eventually nothing made sense.
Her parents had been lost to a humongous storm more than 50 yrs.ago,supposedly in the Bermuda Triangle & she just couldn't let go.
Her life & the roads it took,all were caused by this tragedy & everyone from that day forward.
I thought it would be more about the Bermuda Triangle & not her life.Just couldn't stay interested.
Thank you "NetGalley" for the opportunity to try & read and to the author (Sarah Conover) for presenting.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

A memoir written about losing the parents and grandparents that she never knew. They were lost to a storm in the Bermuda Triangle as she was just a baby. She tries putting the pieces together to understand what happened during that time and how her remaining family could go on. It's sad that she never knew them but, feels that piece of her is missing.

I got halfway through and was surprised that I still had so much left... wondering where else that book would go. I had this through Kindle Unlimited which, has ended so, I couldn't finish it but, I got what I wanted out of the book.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story intrigued me so off I went in search of a copy. The author's life journey to date is here, much (all?) of it intersecting with the tragedy that occurred when she was very young. She seems to always be searching. The organization style took awhile to adjust to but eventually worked for me. It is thoughtfully written. IMO there are some journal-like writings that could have been taken out.

[Christine Guzzardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gripping story told in a way that provides a perfect balance of history, mystery, memoir, and a search for identity and belonging. It will appeal to fans of different genres. One doesn't have to be literally orphaned to appreciate the emotional and psychological complexities of the search for connection to a parent that is physically or emotionally absent. I highly recommend this book to lovers of nonfiction, history, personal growth, search for meaning, and a well-told mystery.

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Conover has written a beautiful memoir that kept me reading late into the night. I had not heard about the sailing tragedy that happened to her family and she describes it and her life with grace& humor a really involving read.#netgalley #setadrift,

[Sue Ade · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was able to read parts of the book and can't wait to read the final version

[Robyn Ringler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping memoir, beautifully written. Highly recommend.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glad to know Sarah now and to see that she is an amazing woman.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5