 |
Joshua Cabot, a Harvard graduate, leaves his work in Boston with Samuel Colt of firearms fame to open an assay office near San Francisco at the outset of the California Gold Rush. Cabot expects his three-year contract to fund further work in his field of metallurgy in Boston, but little does he know that this temporary situation will irrevocably change his life forever. A youthful indiscretion with an attractive young woman lands him in an unexpected early marriage. When tragedy strikes all too soon, Cabot takes solace in his cups in a house of prostitution along with his friend Ethan.
Their world is turned upside down as they awaken in the hold of the Pacifica, a merchant brig bound via Alaska, Hawaii, and the remote South Pacific to the Dutch East Indies and Asia. Captain Stark, a grizzled seaman desperate for a final prosperous trip before retirement, has lost many sailors to the lure of the California gold fields, so he kidnaps a handful of men for a perilous year-long journey as his once-familiar nautical world is in flux with uprisings and unrest.
Burdick writes with an urgency that sometimes leads to occasional unevenness in the prose, yet this is balanced by the passionate rendering of this unsettling historical era brought to vivid life. The story is gripping even though many situations are typical in a seafaring story, such as tragic injuries and deaths aboard the vessel, rowdy crews partying with women in ports of call, power struggles between the captain and first mate and other crew members, clashes with pirates or bandits in harbors or on the high seas, unexpected delays that push the voyage into hurricane season, and the ever-present threat of mutiny. These situations are made fresh by Burdick’s memorable characters and his engine of unrelenting conflict.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review
Next Focus Review
Previous Focus Review