Historical fiction about being stranded in a lifeboat
Content warning: suicide
I picked up this book some time ago from the Lifeline Book Fair for an obvious reason: the beautiful tinted edges. They are such a deep turquoise colour and the cover design itself is really striking. The endsheets have a map showing shipping routes across the Atlantic Ocean. I’m still chugging away at my to-read shelf, and it has been a little while since I have read one of my books with tinted edges, so I chose this one.
“The Lifeboat” by Charlotte Rogan is a historical fiction novel about a young woman called Grace who is on trial with two other women. Weeks earlier, she finds herself on a lifeboat as the ocean liner she and her husband were sailing on is sinking. Before long it becomes clear that the lifeboat is overcrowded and is riding too low in the water. Despite taking turns to bail out the water, the passengers realise that to survive, some will have to be sacrificed. As Grace presents her testimony to the court, the reader is left wondering what truly happened on that boat?
Shipwrecks and being stranded at sea are almost always interesting stories because they place an often large number of people within a very limited amount of space and put them under the enormous pressure of surviving in extreme conditions until they are either rescued or die waiting. The absolute highlight of this book was the perspective. Grace is a deeply enigmatic character who initially seems very innocent but who later lets slips moment of ambition and manipulation that leave the reader questioning exactly how reliable her recollection of the events was. Rogan is a strong writer and the juxtaposition between the crowdedness of the boat and the emptiness of the sky and sea around them was truly unsettling. I felt that Rogan really captured the discomfort and pain that comes along with exposure and starvation and the book felt really realistic and well-researched.
While I thought it was well-written, I’m not quite sure the ending was landed. While I appreciate that Grace was the main character we were concerned with, I didn’t feel connected to any of the other characters except perhaps Mr Hardie. Grace, in true narcissistic form, talked about her interactions with them but not really much about their natures. I would have liked to have known a lot more about Hannah. While I understood that Rogan was angling for subtlety when suggesting what was truly happening on the ocean liner before it sank and how Grace came to be on the boat on the first place, I think a bit more depth or a few more moments of leaning into Grace’s unreliability would have made the ending more hard-hitting.
A well-written and easy book to read that left me with plenty to think about but wishing for a little more punch.
Tinted Edges 