Book review: "The Gales of November" by John U. Bacon

I picked up John U. Bacon's 2025 book "The Gales of November" because I thought it would tell me the story of the wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald, the freighter that sank in a storm in Lake Superior in 1975, taking the lives of 29 men with it.

The book does tell that story, but it also has a lot more. Bacon describes the history of shipping on the Great Lakes, the ships, the work, life aboard the vessels, the men who worked on them, and even the crew's families.

Frankly, this is the kind of storytelling that often makes me impatient. "C'mon," you'll find me saying. "Let's get to the important stuff."

But Bacon is such a talented writer and thorough researcher, that every bit of this book is interesting. Bacon conducted hundreds of interviews and scoured through historical records, collecting truckloads of illuminating stories. Every page of the book is filled with details that surprise or educate, sometimes both. 

In all, "The Gales of November" is one of the best books I've ever read. 

To start, Bacon takes the reader back a couple centuries to explain the how Great Lakes shipping began with the transportation of beaver pelts, then moved on to copper and lumber and eventually to taconite, the rock that gives us iron. Taconite is dug out of northern Minnesota, then shipped to Detroit or Toledo for processing so the iron can be extracted and made into steel. Long the "cash crop" of Great Lakes shipping, there were 26,000 tons of taconite aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald on its final voyage.

While most of us don't spend much time thinking about Great Lakes shipping, Bacon shows that it has been vital for the development of the United States. The auto industry, for one, depends on it. He makes a compelling case that America wouldn't have won World War II without the freighters of the Great Lakes bringing the elements needed to make planes, ships and vehicles for the military.

But shipping on these inland lakes comes with significant hazards. The storms and unruly waves they produce make the Great Lakes more dangerous for ships than the ocean. Bacon recounts the storm of 1913, which sank 19 ships and left 254 people dead. "For two weeks bodies surfaced on the coasts of the Great Lakes."

The launching of the Edmund Fitzgerald 1958 was a game-changer. The biggest and fastest freighter on the lakes, the famous "Fitz" drew crowds to its launch, broke records, and attracted VIP guests to well-appointed dining room and first-rate cabins. Even though some bigger and faster ships were eventually built, the Fitzgerald retained its status as the most respected and renowned on the lakes.

Bacon introduces us to the men who made this their career(at the time, there were no women crew members). For nine months of the year — they took the winter off when ice clogged the lakes — the men went back and forth across the lakes, earning good pay but rarely seeing their families.

In the summer, the workers in the engine room found the metal on hand rails so hot you could leave skin on them if you weren't careful. "If it was 90 degrees outside, it could be 120 degrees in the engine room," Bacon writes. "The engine crew would sweat so much they'd leave white salt lines on their blue work T-shirts from the sweat drying."

Not that other jobs on the boat were easy. Three deckhands had the chore of latching and unlatching 1,428 hatch clamps on every departure and arrival — and they had to do it quickly, because everyone else was waiting for them to finish.

Many of the men didn't know how to swim, Bacon notes. Some said it didn't matter — the lakes were so cold, if your ship sank you would die quickly regardless.

At off loading, a giant crane would grab huge "fistfuls" of taconite, then lower a bulldozer into the holds of the ship to push the rock into piles that could be more easily grabbed. Once that hold was empty, the crane and the bulldozer moved on to the next one.

Bacon finds nice side stories, too. He tells of the only boat in the U.S. with it's own zip code, the J.W. Westcott, which delivers mail to the sailors on Great Lakes ships. 

If Bacon had stopped here, even with no mention of the sinking of Edmund Fitzgerald, he would still have had an excellent book. 

When he does tell of the final journey of the Fitz, in in the final 40 percent of the book, the story grows tense. It can be painful to read. You know it's going to end in tragedy, but even as you're reading it, you're hoping that something, anything, will take them down a different path.

The voyage began inauspiciously. As the Fitzgerald left the dock at departure at Superior, Wisconsin, the weatther was uncharacteristically calm and relatively warm for November.

Soon, however, two monstrous storms, one from the northwest, one from the southwest, came together over Lake Superior, kicking up winds of 85-miles-hour and turbulent waves. 

It is impossible to know for sure why the Fitzgerald sank since there were no survivors and there was no "black box" in the pilot house. Bacon finds clues in looking at other ships that were in the water that day, particularly the Anderson, which was similar size to the Fitz and just a little behind it when it disappeared. 

If you want a full explanation for the sinking, you should read the book, but I'll try to sum up the key factors.

First, it was epic storm, one of the all-time worst. The storm produced 30-fout waves that rolled over the Fitzgerald's deck. It knocked out the ship's radar and pushed and pulled on the ship in extraordinary ways.

Second, they were carrying too much taconite. It wasn't unusual for the freighters like the Fitz to push, and even exceed, weight limits. The company earned more money and the captain often got a bonus if they carried more. But in November, with its more perilous weather, captains usually avoid being overweight, Bacon explains. 

Third, they were going too fast. The Fitzgerald almost always went fast; that's what it was know for and that helped its owners make more money. But the severe conditions of this storm required a slower pace to allow the ship to synchronize with the waves, rather than fight them, Bacon explains. 

Fourth, they failed to pull into safe harbor when the storm turned bad. One ship, the Wilfred Sykes, did, pulling into the protection of Thunder Bay, but the Fitz was bigger and had survived many a storm, possibly leading to overconfidence of Captain McSorley (Bacon goes out of his way to emphasize that McSorley was considered the best captain on the lakes, but may have still made mistakes on this day). 

It's also possible that the breakthrough design of the Fitz was a factor. The ship had been built with fewer rivets (but more welds) to save weight. Crew members had often commented on how much the ship bent in heavy waves. Supposedly this was an advantage, allowing the ship to bend but not break. But in this storm, the ship did break, splitting in two. Did the design make it too weak? 

Bacon also outlines a tepid response from the Coast Guard to calls from McSorley, but it's likely that any rescue mission would have come too late.

Finally, the mere mention of this tragic voyage likely reminds you of Gordon Lightfoot's famous song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Bacon doesn't ignore this, spending a fascinating chapter describing how Lightfoot, a recreational sailor on Lake Superior, wrote lyrics for the song after reading the news coverage.

Lightfoot agonzied over the song, fearful that doing it wrong could come off as tone-deaf or look like he was simply cashing in on the tragedy. It was only because Lightfoot's band had some extra studio time that he agreed to even try recording the song at all. 

As it turned out, the recorded version — the one you've surely heard many times — come from the very first time Lightfoot and his band did the song. No one but Lightfoot even knew the lyrics until that moment. They later did three or four more attempts with the song, but eveentually decided the first take was the best.

Book review: "A Study in Scarlet" by Arthur Conan Doyle

As the first Sherlock Holmes book, "A Study in Scarlet" starts off pretty much as what you would expect. Then it gets weird.

Arthur Conan Doyle's 1887 book begins with Dr. John Watson meeting the mysterious Holmes, simply because they are both looking for a roommate. If you've seen the Benedict Cumberbatch-Martin Freeman TV series this will feel comfortably familiar.

Watson, as the narrator and eyes and ears of the reader, describes the curious ways of the Sherlock Holmes, a man both brilliant and arrogant. Soon there is a murder and the game is afoot. Watson tags along as Holmes tries to solve a set of crimes that are baffling police.

It's all very readable and satisfying, in a style similar to what you've seen in Sherlock Holmes movies or TV shows. Conan Doyle's plot moves briskly along. as smooth as a skate on ice. 

Then, just after the halfway mark in the book, Holmes abruptly solves the case and arrests the perpetretor. But he doesn't explain how he solved the case.

You might expect the explanation to immediately follow, but instead the book launches into something called "Part II: The Country of the Saints."

This is an entirely different story, about a man and girl who are rescued from near-death in the American desert by a band of Mormons and their subsequent life in the religious group. There is no Sherlock Holmes, no Watson.

This story is not a not just different in content but in tone as well. Whereas the Sherlock Holmes story was playful and whimiscal, "Country of the Saints" is dark, sad, and grim. 

I wasn't even sure that it could be by the same author and wondered if it had been tacked on to my digital copy of "A Study in Scarlet" by mistake. 

But slowly the two stories start to come together. The first tip-off are some character names shared between the two stories. Eventually, it all makes sense. 

For all its differences, the second half is every bit as readable as the first. It was written by Doyle, who again shows his skill in storytelling. I read the whole book in a swift day and a half.

As strange as the combination of the two stories seemed at first, it does work. Not only does the second story explain the motive for two murders, it provides an appropriate balance of seriousness to the lighter Sherlock Holmes' story. We are talking murder, after all. 

One of the curiosities of this book is Conan Doyle's harsh portrayal of the Mormons as an evil cult that featured forced marriage, and used kidnapping and murder as its tools. A real person, Brigham Young, is portrayed as the brutal leader. 

According to Smithsonian magazines, this image of Mormons was common in 19th century England, perhaps fed by the Latter Day Saints slaughter of 140 people in the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857. "At the time he wrote the story, Conan Doyle had never even been to America," said the magazine. 

The Salt Lake Tribune, in 1994, wrote: "From the LDS point of view, A Study in Scarlet was another in a long line of antagonistic Mormon-hating books that made for popular reading. Conan Doyle was not high on their list of favorite people."

Doyle tempered his views on Mormons latter in life and even came to Utah to speak.  

Book review: "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling

I was shocked — shocked! — by "The Jungle Book."

Almost everyone is familiar with the 1967 Disney animated film "The Jungle Book" that tells the story of Mowgli, the boy who was raised by wolves, and the friendly bear Baloo, the wise  panther Bagheera, and the evil tiger Shere Khan. It was a popular and fun movie.

So when I picked up "The Jungle Book" — the 1894 book by Rudyard Kipling — I expected to read Mowgli's story. And, at the start, at least, that's what I got. 

Then, about 40% of the way through the book, Mowgli's story ends. It's over. What? There are many pages left. What will fill them? 

More stories, it turns out. There are four more stories in "The Jungle Book." I didn't realize this. 

(To be clear, I was reading "The Jungle Book" on my phone, where you simply move ahead one page at a time. If I'd had a physical book, I suspect I would have known earlier that this is collection of stories.)

Somehow I got over my shock, and kept reading. I'm glad I did. In all, "The Jungle Book" is an enjoyable work, a whimsical set of stories with talking animals, moments of peril and drama, surprising twists, and even a few insights into the natural world.

Kipling writes clearly, with evocative descriptions, like when monkeys kidnap Mowgli and carry him, swinging branch to branch, through the trees:

"His escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the weak topmost branches crackle and bend under them, and, then, with a cough and a whoop, would fling themselves into the air outward and downward, and bring up hanging by their hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the next tree."

There's even a touch of Shakespearean dialogue, as when Mowgli says to Kaa the snake: "We be of one blood, ye and I."

Many of these stories would be good for reading to a child. 

Let me go through them one at a time:

Mowgli and Shere Khan

This is the longest of the stories and the most well-known, in part due to the Disney movie. It has the deepest and most complex story, covering Mowgli's adoption as a baby by wolves to his life as a young man. 

The story is well told in three chapters. I found it odd that the second chapter is a long flashback. Why not place it where would fall chronologically?

Still, it is a good, engaging read. 

The White Seal

First, it's a little weird to have a story not in the jungle in "The Jungle Book." That said, this an enjoyable story of a young seal searching the world's seas for an island where humans don't hunt seals. There's a message of conservation here.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

This is the story of a young mongoose, adapted by an Indian family, that valiantly defends the household from cobras. 

While Kipling portrays the snakes as evil, I had some sympathy for them. They lived in the garden of this house before the humans moved in and before Rikki the mongoose arrived. They were there first. And now they're the bad guys for trying to survive in their home?

Still, it's an interesting story worth reading.

Toomai of the Elephants

This the only one of the stories where the animals don't talk. It tells the story of young boy, Little Toomei, who is learning from his father the care and training of elephants. The story builds up to a night when the curious Little Toomei learns one of the elephants' greatest secrets.

You can even learn a little bit about about elephant handling and training in this story. For instance, as Kipling tells it, when wild elephants are captured in the jungle they are marched out between two tame elephants to control their behavior. 

Her Majesty's Servants

This is not so much a story, as a conversation among an army horse, a mule, a camel, an elephant and a dog. The animals compare their roles in the service of man, exhibiting a little a rivalry and a little jealously. It'a s clever, lightly funny story, but could use a little more action

In between each story in "The Jungle Book" there are some poems/songs, which connect loosely with the stories and can be fun to read aloud. 

For example: Here's a part of a sea shanty the accompanies the seal story:

The beaches of Lukannon–the winter-wheat so tall–
The dripping, crinkled lichens, and the sea-fog drenching all! 
The platforms of our playground, all shining smooth and worn! 
The beaches of Lukannon–the home where we were born!   

Podcast falls short in telling of check fraud scam

 I like the podcast "The Perfect Scam" a lot. Each episode tells the story of scam with extensive interviews of victims, experts and sometimes police and others. 

I just listened to the most recent episode, about a "check washing" criminal who stole nearly $10,000 from a Rhode Island couple. Much of the story involves the couple's frustrating experience dealing with their bank —which gave them confusing responses but little actual help —in an attempt to get their money back. It's a good story, but while I usually find this podcast thorough in its reporting, this episode had some weaknesses. 

First, they should have named the bank (and tried to get a comment from them). By not doing so, they tarred all banks with the same negative brush. 

Second, I wanted to hear more from the police. The victims said police had a picture of the thief; so was that person arrested? If not, why not? 

Third, I would have liked to have heard from the TV reporter who got the couple's money back. How did her conversation with the bank go? 

Fourth, the post office official they interviewed was a bit behind the times on the nature of check washing today. Criminals now can easily alter checks digitally; no chemicals required. 

Fifth, it was mentioned briefly, but the show should have emphasized the best solution to this fraud: Stop writing checks. There are so many other ways to pay bills online and send money digitally that checks aren’t necessary. Not only will that stop the fraud, it will help protect postal workers from being attacked by crimials seeking checks in the mail they're carrying. 

Book review: "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway

Some books are so bad they can be called a "trainwreck." That's not good, obviously, but sometimes a book can be such a mess, such a disaster, that you can love to hate it. You know: "So bad it's good."

"The Sun Also Rises," Ernest Hemingway's 1926 book, is definitely not a trainwreck, but you may end up wishing it was.

This book is more of a slow-moving trolley that carries a group of friends placidly around town as they drink, eat and engage in insipid small talk. The trolley doesn't hit anything and nothing hits it. It just goes around the same loop, going over the same ground again and again. 

To be fair, "The Sun Also Rises" is fairly easy to read. The disalogue is crisp and Hemingway is able to nicely describes a scene without excess flowery language. 

But remarkably little happens. Hemingway faithfully records every time a character bathes, gets a haircut or shaves. He notes when they get bored at one cafe, and go to another. He describes a fishing trip where they do little more than dig up worms for bait, talk and drink wine.

"The Sun Also Rises" portrays the lives of five alcoholic friends living in Paris in the 1920s. They flirt a little, dance a little, but mostly they drink. 

The characters drink wine, beer, whiskey, martinis, cognac, brandy, absinthe and a liqueur called Izzarra. They drink in the morning, afternoon and night. There is so much drinking in "The Sun Also Rises" that you might wake up with a second-hand hangover just from turning the pages.

Unlike a tranwreck, where the flaws are obvious, this "trolley" kind of book lulls you into thinking that something good is just around the bend. But it almost never is.

Here's a typical passage: 

"I unpacked my bags and stacked my books on the table beside the head of the bed, put out my shaving things, hung up some clothes in the big armoire, and made up a bundle for the laundry. Then I took a shower in the bathroom and went down to lunch."

You might think that there is some reason, to be revealed later, that Hemingway has mentioned the stacking of the books, the hanging of the clothes and the other details. But you'd be wrong.

It is remarkable that an author like Hemingway has created such a basket of uninteresting and unlikeable characters. The narrator, Jake, and a couple other characters are so featureless as to be bland. The main female character, Brett, is self-absorbed and tiresome. Another one, Mike, becomes a jerk when he drinks (which is most of the time). 

It wouldn't be fair to say that nothing happens. In the second half of the book, the characters go to Pamplona, Spain, for the running of the bulls and bullfighting. Hemingway vividly describes these events, touching on the culture, subtle artistry, and brutality of bullfighting. This part is worth reading, but it's only about 8 percent of the book.

After the bullfighting, the characters leave Pamplona, most heading back to Paris. The book should have ended there, but for some reason Hemingway tacks on a pointless extra chapter where Jake talks to some bicyclists and goes for a relaxing swim in the ocean. Oh, and he drinks. 

A head's up for readers: "The Sun Also Rises" has at least nine uses of the N-word and multiple anti-Jewish insults, including the word "kike." 

Book review: "A Marriage at Sea" by Sophie Elmhirst

I don't want to brag, but when it comes to getting lost at sea, I know a few things.

I've read at least 13 books about real people who must survive on the open ocean after their boat sinks or its engine dies. This includes "Adrift," Steven Callahan's amazing tale of floating across the Atlantic for 76 days. There's "In the Heart of the Sea," the story of 20 men desperately trying to stay alive after losing their whaleship. Equally impressive is "438 Days," the tale of a Mexican fisherman who survived over a year floating across the Pacific. 

All of those are great books and each offered lessons about what to do, and what not to do, if you're ever unfortunate enough to be in that situtation. 

The latest addition to my survival-at-sea bookshelf is Sophie Elmhirst's 2024 book, "A Marriage at Sea." This book describes the ordeal of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, an English couple who were attempting to sail their 31-foot boat from England to New Zealand in 1973 when the vessel sank after a collision with a whale. For 118 days, the Baileys drifted across the Pacific in a rubber life raft and inflatable dinghy, the two vessels tethered by a rope. 

It is a compelling story and is well-told by Elmhirst.

The survival story isn't the only interesting part of the book. Elmhirst details how the Baileys planned and prepared for their long-distance boat trip, then takes us along, as vicarious participants, as they sail from port to port, from Europe to the Canary Islands to the Caribbean, and then through the Panama Canal. I was struck by the social network of this subculture; the Baileys often met up with the same travelers doing similar voyages in far-flung places.

The sinking upends their carefully made plans. Like other such books, "A Marriage at Sea" makes it clear that survival in this situation is a lot more than luck — it takes discipline, focus and innovation. 

They conserve their food tins as long as they can, then turn to the sea for sustenance. Maralyn turns a safety pin into a fish hook. They catch turtles and carve out the meat with small knives. 

What makes this story unique in this genre is that the main characters are a married couple, inherently adding a layer to their personal dynamics. At one point, well into their ordeal, Maralyn ask Maurice how she looks (they had no mirror). He is reluctant to tell her how much her bones are visible through her rapidly withering skin. Later, as Maurice fell into depression and considers suicide, it is Maralyn who holds him steady.

After their rescue, Elmhirst outlines a bewildering period when the Baileys achieve worldwide fame, appearing on TV shows, become honored guests at events. It's a jarring contrast to their days of isolation on the sea.

That is all interesting, but Elmhirst stretches the story too far, detailing the Baileys' lives until death. Maralyn died in 2002, while Maurice lived 16 years more. I don't mean to be harsh, but we don't need six chapters showing the morose Maurice shuffling sadly through his last years, lost without Maralyn, each week wandering into his favorite teahouse to describe his suicidal feelings. 

I have a couple other quibbles with the book. First, I wish Elmhirst had been more forthright in explaining her sourcing. She rarely cites a source, leaving the reader to wonder where the information came from. At the very back of the book, she explains that she used the Baileys' own books, Maralyn's diary and interviews with some friends and acquaintances. I just wish she had stated all that at the top. 

My second complaint is about the lack of pictures. There's only one photo in the book. This seems particularly striking because Elmhirst describes specific photos of the Baileys during and after their rescue. Why not just include the photos? 

But these are minor complaints. "A Marriage at Sea." is largely an engaing story and I'm glad I read it.

I can't leave this review without including my list of survival-at-sea books. While all these books have at least some merit, I'll list them in order from best to avegage.

 "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex"

"438 Days"

"Adrift"

"Unbroken"

"Last Man Off"

"Fatal Forecast"

"A Storm to Soon"

"Overboard!"

"Deadliest Sea" 

"All Brave Sailors"

"So Close to Home"

"Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do"

 

Book review: "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain

As a young cook at a New York restaurant, Anthony Bourdain was tormented in the kitchen by a more senior, and often drunk, chef named Luis.

"Luis considered frequent explorations of my young ass with his dirty paws to be a perk of his exalted position; at every opportunity, he'd take a running swat between my cheeks, driving his fingers as far up my ass as my checked pants would allow," Bourdain writes in his 2000 book, "Kitchen Confidential. "I endured this in the spirit of good fun for a while — until I'd had enough."

One day in the kitchen, Bourdain spotted Luis approaching out of the corner of his eye. He casually grabbed a big meat fork and, when Luis's fast-moving hand approached his butt cheeks, Bourdain drove the fork's tines deep into his assailant's hand.

"Luis screamed like a burning wolverine and fell to his knees, two wide holes — one on each side of his middle knuckle — already welling up with blood. He managed to get up, the whole kitchen crew screaming and hooting with laughter, his hand blowing up to the size of a catcher's mitt and taking on an interesting black-and- blue and red color."

Not only did this end the assaults, it improved Bourdain's work status. "The other cooks began addressing me as an equal. Nobody grabbed my ass anymore. People smiled and patted me on the back when I came to work in the morning. I had made my bones."

This is one of many terrific stories Bourdain tells in "Kitchen Confidential." The book covers some 27 years of Bourdain's culinary career, starting as a dishwaher at a seafood place in Massachusetts, then moving on to chef roles at literally dozens of other restaurants, mostly in New York.

Bourdain shows us what really goes on in a restaurant's kitchen, and it's often not a pretty picture. He describes a snarl of barely organized chaos filled with cooks and staff shouting, cursing, trading insults in multiple languages, arguing, complaining about customers, stealing, and, at any spare moment, having sex with the wait staff, getting drunk, or doing drugs. 

It may be unruly, but it's also part of an intricate dance that puts your meal on your plate. Long before you arrive at a restaurant, Bourdain explains, chefs are busy ordering food, sharpening knives, planning the menu, roasting bones for stock, making sauces, dividing meat into portions, and managing deliveries.

Bourdain laments that he rarely had time to check the quality of the food at delivery, but notes, "My purveyors know me as a dangerously unstable and profane rat-bastard, so if I don't like what I receive, they know I'll be on the phone later, screaming at them to come and 'Pick this shit up!'"

It's hard, all-consuming work — Bourdain describes frequently working 12- to 16-hour days, pushing out hundreds of meals a day. After 27 years, his hands and arms are scarred from burns and knife cuts. There's an emotional toll, too, as Bourdain has to manage changing demands from the owner and compete with rivals in the kitchen. 

But all in all he loved it. He loved it because he loved great food and loved to prepare it.

"I enjoy the look on the face of my boss when I do a potau-feu special — the look of sheer delight as he takes the massive bowl of braised hooves, shoulders and tails in, the simple boiled turnips, potatoes and carrots looking just right, just the way it should be," he says, describing just one of his favorite dishes.

Bourdain is a strong writer, as well as an opinionated one. He calls vegetarians "the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food."

Weekend diners, he says, "are universally viewed with suspicion, even contempt, by both cooks and waiters alike; they're the slackjaws, the rubes, the out-of-towners, the well-done-eating, undertipping, bridge-and-tunnel pre-theater hordes, in to see Cats or Les Miz and never to return."

For all its great stories, "KItchen Confidential" is unevenly cooked. There are chapters that don't fit, like one in which gives his advice on kitchen tools and garnishes, and another where he profiles other chefs. Those belong in other books. 

Worse, Bourdain overstays at his table. His brash opinions and cocky attitude are entertaining for much of the book, but eventually become repetitive and tiresome. There's just a little too much Anthony Bourdain in Anthony Bourdain's book. (It's telling that when I was 90% done with this book, I actually put it aside and read another book in its entirety. I eventually came back and finished "Kitchen Confidential," but not because I was eager to read more; I just wanted to finish it.)

So read the good stuff, but prepared to say when you've had enough.