APRIL 2012 - AudioFile
Gripping suspense swells throughout Rebecca Gibel's narration of the fate of 39 lifeboat survivors after a mysterious explosion sinks the luxury ocean liner EMPRESS ALEXANDRA in 1914. Grace, the listener learns at the beginning, has survived the calamity only find herself on trial for murder. While Gibel ably performs the gruff voices of men and the accents of international passengers, as Grace her performance is too glib—naïve and incongruous—for a young widow who has survived catastrophe, deplorable hardship, and the miseries of dire thirst and starvation. The spellbinding novel is engrossing, and the author's attention to detail and moral complexity radiates. But would Grace really have the capacity for such unmitigated cheer in the face of the death and terrible cruelty in the confines of a lifeboat adrift at sea? A.W. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
"Charlotte Rogan uses a deceptively simply narrative of shipwreck and survival to explore our all-too-human capacity for self-deception."—J. M. Coetzee
"The Lifeboat traps the reader in a story that is exciting at the literal level and brutally moving at the existential: I read it in one go."—Emma Donoghue, author of Room
"What a splendid book. . . . I can't imagine any reader who looks at the opening pages wanting to put the book down. . . . It's so refreshing to read a book that is ambitious and yet not tricksy, where the author seems to be in command of her material and really on top of her game. It's beautifully controlled and totally believable."—Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall
"The Lifeboat is a spellbinding and beautifully written novel, one that will keep readers turning pages late into the night. This is storytelling at its best, and I was completely absorbed from beginning to end."—Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried, In the Lake of the Woods, July, July
"The Lifeboat is a richly rewarding novel, psychologically acute and morally complex. It can and should be read on many levels, but it is first and foremost a harrowing tale of survival. And what an irresistible tale it is; terrifying, intense, and, like the ocean in which the shipwrecked characters are cast adrift, profound."—Valerie Martin, author of Property and The Confessions of Edward Day
Valerie Martin
"The Lifeboat is a richly rewarding novel, psychologically acute and morally complex. It can and should be read on many levels, but it is first and foremost a harrowing tale of survival. And what an irresistible tale it is; terrifying, intense, and, like the ocean in which the shipwrecked characters are cast adrift, profound."
Tim O'Brien
"The Lifeboat is a spellbinding and beautifully written novel, one that will keep readers turning pages late into the night. This is storytelling at its best, and I was completely absorbed from beginning to end."
Hilary Mantel
"What a splendid book. . . . I can't imagine any reader who looks at the opening pages wanting to put the book down. . . . It's so refreshing to read a book that is ambitious and yet not tricksy, where the author seems to be in command of her material and really on top of her game. It's beautifully controlled and totally believable."
Emma Donoghue
"The Lifeboat traps the reader in a story that is exciting at the literal level and brutally moving at the existential: I read it in one go."
J. M. Coetzee
"Charlotte Rogan uses a deceptively simply narrative of shipwreck and survival to explore our all-too-human capacity for self-deception."
Library Journal
An explosion on an ocean liner gliding across the Atlantic has dire consequences for 22-year-old newlywed Grace Winter. Suddenly, she's a widow, and because the lifeboats had been filled to overflowing, with people fighting (sometimes unsuccessfully) to climb aboard and stay there, she's also on trial for murder. A great book-club pick—and just in time for the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic.
APRIL 2012 - AudioFile
Gripping suspense swells throughout Rebecca Gibel's narration of the fate of 39 lifeboat survivors after a mysterious explosion sinks the luxury ocean liner EMPRESS ALEXANDRA in 1914. Grace, the listener learns at the beginning, has survived the calamity only find herself on trial for murder. While Gibel ably performs the gruff voices of men and the accents of international passengers, as Grace her performance is too glib—naïve and incongruous—for a young widow who has survived catastrophe, deplorable hardship, and the miseries of dire thirst and starvation. The spellbinding novel is engrossing, and the author's attention to detail and moral complexity radiates. But would Grace really have the capacity for such unmitigated cheer in the face of the death and terrible cruelty in the confines of a lifeboat adrift at sea? A.W. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
