Book info

• Title Shadow of the Titanic
• Author Andrew Wilson
• Year 2011
• Genre Non-fiction

In the early hours of 15 April 1912, after the majestic liner Titanic had split apart and the 1,500 men, women and children struggled to stay alive in the freezing Atlantic, the sea was alive with the sound of screaming. Then, as the ship sank to the ocean floor and the passengers slowly died from hypothermia, a deathly silence settled over the sea. Yet the echoes of that night reverberated through the lives of each of the 705 survivors. SURVIVING THE TITANIC tells the extraordinary stories of some of those who survived. Although we think we know the story of the Titanic - the famously unsinkable ship that hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Britain to America in April 1912 - little has been written about what happened to the survivors after the tragedy. How did the loss of the ship shape the lives of the people who survived? How did those who were saved feel about those who perished? And how did they remember that terrible night, in effect a disaster that has been likened to the destruction of a small town?​

Thoughts

There’s so much media around the sinking of the Titanic, an event that continues to captivate so many people - including me. But why does it? This book tries to answer that question, alongside chronicling the sinking in one chapter but more importantly the stories of the survivors in subsequent chapters. Some people warrant an entire chapter to themselves, their subsequent stories are so full and intriguing. Other chapters cover a few survivors and what they did with their lives after making it back to dry land, and it’s just so fascinating to see the shadow of this tragedy looming over them and the different ways of dealing with it. Along the way, the tables are turned on us, though, and pondering why this particular ship continues to garner so much attention.

Rating: 4 / 5