Transcripts For CSPAN2 David 20240704

Im the manager of author and speaker engagement at the pratt library. Thank you all for coming this evening. Its greatly appreciated. And davids to come out and speak for about 45 minutes. He has a powerpoint. Youll be able to see everything off screen right there. And hell take your questions. Youll know about 15 minutes for your questions. We do have a virtual of this program like we do for all of programs. So if you wouldnt mind bringing questions to that mike or to that mike, the folks back home can hear them. I want to thank our onsite bookseller, ivy bookshop for being here. If you havent purchased a book yet, please do so. Join me to the joke. Okay. I spot a Library Books from a mile away, so dont to get one signed. Okay. If it didnt land, see she loves that one. We have a lot of great programs in may and june coming up as our new campus newsletter out there, theres a please grab your way out. I promise. Theres something there for everybody tonight. Im happy. Welcome david graham to the library to discuss his latest book, the wager a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder. In it, he recounts the fallout of a British Naval shipwreck off the coast of patagonia in the mid 18th century. The survivors of his majestys ship, the wager, eventually landed at different locations in south america, roughly 3000 miles from the wreck, with competing stories. The incident that resulted in a Court Martial, david grann, a staff writer at the new yorker, is the author of several bestselling, including the lost city of z killers of the flower moon, a finalist for the National Book award and winner of the Edgar Allan Poe award, killer killers of the flower moon is also being adapted, a Martin Scorsese film that will be released this fall vanity fair called the wager, a defying literary naval history thriller, part master and commander, part of the flies, in a recent gq profile, wrote that david has been your favorite writers, favorite writer for decades. And in her review of the book for the los angeles times, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist marianne gwin wrote, the story of the wager is, like many of its antecedents, from homers odyssey to mutiny on bounty, a testament to the depths of human depravity in the heights of human endurance. And you cant ask for better than that from a story. Maybe you get seasick at the thought of a seafaring novel make an exception this case, the wager will keep you in its grip to its head scratching improbable end. Its my great pleasure to welcome david grant to the pratt library. Its great to be here tonight and to be back at the library. Research can you to you never expect for example one day several years ago i found myself in a small wood heated boat, a motorboat off the chilly coast of patagonia in what is now an area that is known as gulf of saros, as some prefer to call it the gulf of payne. It was freezing winter and we were caught in a storm with towering waves that dwarfed the boat when i looked in front of me, all i could see was a mountain of water. And when glanced behind me, all i could see another mountain of water. There was captain and two crew members and the boat was being tossed about so violently that i sat on the deck the cabinet, and did not dare where i maybe tossed and break a limb and in you think i may be taking some literary i have some video evidence. So as you can probably. Im not much of an explorer or or an adventurer and i taken every possible remedy of seasickness better possible i was like a laboratory, you know. I was taking those things off cable news at 4 a. M. I had a little band, my wrist and a patch behind, my ear, and i was about half drunk on dramamine and i hadnt seen another or another boat for more for nearly a and they kept looking out the porthole, hoping catch a glimpse of that place. It consumed my imagination. Ouija island on that Deserted Island had unfolded one of the most extraordinary and gripping sagas id ever heard of a saga that had philosophers like and voltaire and montesquieu, saint, just like Charles Darwin and of the great novelists of the sea, Herman Melville and patrick obrien. Yet as the boat rolled further and over the seas, swallowing the deck, i began to wonder what youre probably all wondering now. What the hell was i doing in the gulf of pain . And my girl good stories. This one began in 1742. It then that a small battered boat washed ashore off the coast of brazil and on board were 30 men. Their bodies wasted to the bone. One soon gave out as the last breath and but one of them rose with an extraordinary exertion of and he announced that they were the of his majestys ship. The and that they had been shipwrecked a desolate island for months and after building this flimsy craft they traverse. Some 3000 miles one of the longest castaway voyages ever recorded and were hailed for their engines, witty and for their courage. Then several months later, another little boat washed ashore off the coast of chile. On the other side, south america. This boat was even more battered. It was just a dugout with sails stitched together from ripped blankets. On board were three additional survivors, a condition even worse. One of them so delirious, could not recollect his name. But when they recover, ld a verd they leveled a shocking allegation that those people had gone to brazil, were not heroes, they were mutineers. And in the controversy that followed with charges being lobbed back and forth from both, it soon became that while stranded on that desolate island, these officers and crew, the supposed that apostles of western had slowly into a real life lord of flies, a hobbesian state with warring factions and mutinies and murder. Now back in england. These castaways, the leaders of the two factions, along with many of their allies, were summoned to face a Court Martial for. Their alleged crimes on the island. And so many them published their conflicting account of what had happened, which sparked a furious war over the truth. Joan didion famously said that we all tell ourselves stories in order to live, get in their place. It was quite literally true. If they did not tell a convincing tale, they could be hanged. These defendants once hoped to return to england, basked in glory. They had embarked with a squad in a four other four other ships. On a secret mission, which was to try to capture a spanish galleon, feel filled with so much treasure. The ship was known as the prize of all the oceans. Believe it or not, that was part the mission of their plans. It had a real of piracy about it. In fact, the seamen were given offered a tantalizing prospect a share of any treasure treasure money that was seized. But before they could embark, they had to get out of the dockyard raids in england where they had been trapped. This just this map shows where they were heading. And it shows were supposed to cross the atlantic and sail around cape horn, the tip of south america, then up coast to chile and then into the pacific, where they were hoping to intercept the galleon off the coast of the philippines. But they were trapped, marooned at the dockyards. The squadron included four warships, as well as the major. The flagship was as the centurion was under the command and of the commodore who the leader of the expedition a man named george anson. And the task of getting out of these dockers was proving insurmountable all these ships were really the engineering marvels of their time. They were devised to be both murders instruments, cannons and also the homes to sailors would live in close quarters for as long as years at a time. This model of the wager, which was a little bit the Ugly Duckling of the squadron because it was a warship that was not born for battle. It had been remade into a battleship from a merchant ship to serve in this war, but even so was elegant. It had three mass towering mass, a wooden yard arms, which are like booms from which the sails would hang a single ship, like the wager could fly as many as 12 sails. And the larger warships fly as many as 18, yet as sophisticated as these ships were, they were also vulnerable to the elements because they were made of perishable material, which was mostly wood, a single warship, but was one of those astonishing facts come across when youre doing a research, a single warship could take as many as 4000 trees to construct. And these were susceptible to the elements of wind and storm. Little sea worms would burrow holes into ship and termites and. So the squadron was laid up and what was known as rotten row, the dockyards where they had to be essential early remade in many and fitted out for the expedition ocean that they required. Also countless tons of provisions whether or not a single warship could run could require as as much as 40 miles of rope,. 50, 18,000 square feet of sails sails in a farms worth of animals, including goats, goats and cattle and pig. None of which were very cooperative in getting board the most importantly most the squad and in order to operate these five warships would require for nearly 2000 men, many of whom needed be skilled as seamen. The wager, which was the smallest of the warships at about 123 feet long, would require about 250 men, which nearly twice the number it had originally designed for because of the length of the expedition and the military assaults it would require. Yep. Great britain at that time not have conscription and it had exhausted its supply by of volunteers. And so what did the british admiralty do it sent out the press gangs and the press gangs would roam towns and cities and ports looking for any telltale signs of a mariner the round had or the checkered shirt. They would even look at your fingernail eels and fingertips to see if you had torn or tar was often used on a ship to make things water resistant. And if you had tar on your fingers you would be seized and in effect kidnaped and, dragged down unwillingly to go on this expedition. Yet even after the gangs had gone out, squadron was still short of men. And so the admiralty took, the extreme measure of rounding 500 soldiers and seamen from a retirement home many of these men were in sixties and seventies were missing an assortment of and some were so ill. They had to be lifted on stretchers onto these ships. One of the things that makes life on board the ships so is that they were in many ways like a floaty town or a floating civilization. They were people from all ages, boys as young as six. The cook on the wager was in his eighties and they came from all walks of life there were aristocrats and dandy geese. There were city paupers, free black seamen and craftsmen like, carpenters. Theres a great quote from a seaman who said said, a man of war, which is what a warship was called, made just to be styled an epitome of the world in which theres a sample of, every character, some good as well as bad. Among the latter, he noted, were burglars. Pickpockets the butchers, adulterers, gangsters, lampoons, imposters, panders parasites, ruffians, hypocrite, hypocrite is my favorite thread worn bow jack a dandy the navy was known for its ability to coalesce these fractious individual wills into what Horatio Nelson would later dub a band of brothers. Yet the challenge on wager was enormous because so many of the men had been pressed and so many were sick. By september 1740, nearly year had gone by since the start the war and still the wager and the other warships were marooned on the dockyards. But finally, on september 18th, the squadron along with two small cargo ships which plan to accompany the expedition way set off on the perilous voyage. And here can see the expedition as sketched one of the members on board the flagship, the centurion thats the largest ship and you can see the wager mark there. Now the book focuses on the competing accounts, a three men on board the wager we all impose some cahir some meaning on the chaotic events of our existence. We like to rummage the raw images of our memories selecting burnishing a racing and eye. Organize the book this way to. Show how each of these men, like all of us, tried to shape his story in this case to emerge as the hero. One perspective is that of david sheep, who had recently promoted to captain of the wager, he was a burly scotsman in, his forties with a volatile temperament and obsessive dreams of glory. Back in scotland. He had been plagued by debts, chased by creditors. But in that wooden world of a ship he fell and refuge. And on this voyage he had finally obtained what he had always longed for a chance to captain his own warship and possibly capture a lucrative prize. The other perspective is told a second perspective from john bulkeley, the gunner. We do not know what bulkeley looks like because he was born to the lower to middle class. He cannot afford to have a portrait made of. But we know his thoughts. His intimate thoughts because he was a compulsive diarist. He was in many ways the most skilled seaman on the wager. And he was instinctive leader. Yet, because he was not born into the aristocracy, he knew that would never become a commander of a warship. And the third perspective is told from the perspective and the point of view of jim byron, who had been just a 16 year old midshipman on the wager when it set sail. He was born into the nobility and. He later became the grandfather of the poet lord byron, whose poetry, including don june, was greatly influenced. But he referred as my great granddads, my great my granddads narrative. Now, unlike of the people who had set sail on the wager, he had volunteered for the mission. And this is a book and a story that is not only about the stories we tell, but also the way stories shape us. And byron had read all these adventure tales. He even brought them with him in his sea chest for the voyage. And he thought he was going to live this great romance. He in many ways, ah, bewildering eyes and ears onto, this floating, bewildering, floating civilization. As a midshipman. He was training to become an officer. And he has to learn all the new mysterious mores of what it was like to be a warship including a secret coded language in which everything on the ship had its own name and it was only while researching this book that i learned how much of the idioms use today came from the age of sail. A scuttlebutt. Does anyone know what a scuttlebutt is . Scuttlebutt was a barrel in the middle of the ship filled with water where the seamen would gather for water rations. And what would they around the scuttlebutt . They would gossip. Piping hot was bosuns whistle for a hot meal. Pipe down was the bosuns to be quiet under the weather. I always thought that was a great for sickness. Well, it turns out to be quite literal on a ship when a seaman was sick. He did not have to serve on watch. He was kept deck. So he was quite literally under the weather. And perhaps my favorite of these expressions and there are many more, was one that derive came a little bit later in the century from when vice admiral horatio wanted to ignore his superior officers flag to retreat battle. And so what did he do . He took his telescope and he put it up to his blind eye, which is why we now say turn a blind eye now. One day in the voyage, byron heard, the pitch of order eventually given to every midshipman. Aloft you go. And he had to climb up the main mast, which rose some hundred feet in the air, in order to work the a plunge from such a height when undoubtedly kill him after managed to reach the peak. He could see the other great ships in squadron and beyond them the sea a blank expanse on which he was ready to write his own story. But soon everything began to go wrong. As the squadron crossed, the atlantic. It found itself chased by a more powerful spanish armada. Then they faced an even greater threat. The seas around cape horn at the tip. South america. Because these far southern are the only waters flow uninterrupted around globe, unimpeded by any land they accumulate and build waves over as much as 30,000 piles. The cape horn rollers, as theyre called, they reach cape horn and follow through that passage can dwarf a 90 foot mass or the strong currents on earth. And then the which frequently accelerate, accelerate to Hurricane Force and can reach as much 200 miles per hour. Herman melville, who later rounded horn, compared it to a descent into hell in dantes inferno. And as the men tried to round the horn, they were battered by storms day and night. Byron called it the perfect. He would steer all at the waves that broke over the wager, bending it about as if were no more than a pitiful rowboat. Water seeped through virtually every seam. It began to get colder and the rain hardened into sleet. Some the men suffered from frostbite and icicles drip from the lines below 40 degrees. Lot tude. There is no law a sailors adage went below 50 degrees. There is no. And they were now in what was known as the furious fifties. Captain cheap and the other officers and commanders knew they were going to need everybody on board their ships if they were to persevere. And yet it was in that very moment when of the men could no longer rise from their hammocks suffering from a mysterious illness, their eyes bulged and their teeth fell out. And so did their hair. Even the cartilage that seemed to glue together. The body seemed to be coming undone. One man who had fallen in a battle five decades earlier where he had fractured a bone. Of course that bone and healed over five decades. It suddenly again in the very same place. And the disease seemed to be affecting senses. As one seaman put it, it got into our brains and we went raving mad. They were suffering from that great enigma of the age of sail, scurvy, scurvy kilmore mariners. Then all other threats, including other and sea battles, combine. No one then knew that it was brought on by lack of vitamin c and that the cure was so simple. More fruit and in their diet. In fact, the wager in the squadron it stopped in brazil before they went around the horn and on that island where they stopped. There were plenty of limes which could have saved their lives. And of course once people understood later in the century scurvy was caused by british seamen would carry lines with them, which is the reason we were. They were known as limes. In this case, the men in the squadrons suffered one of the worst outbreaks the scurvy ever recorded in maritime history. Hundreds and hundreds of them perished. Their bodies tossed overboard. Unserem tony eastley as the poet lord byron put it, would later put it without grave unconfined, an unknown, cheap. And the other captains were increasingly running out of hands to operate their vessels. Some ships cannot even raise a sail and seals were blowing out in the storm. So much that they had to take them down. And one of the commanders and this was just. Couldnt maneuver the ship without sails were just being tossed about so badly. And so we ordered the top men, the climbed the mass to scurry up these mass up these rope lines and ratlines to their bodies as threadbare sails. And so 100 feet in the air, they are clinging to the ropes like spiders, their bodies concave holding on as a gale blew against them. It enabled the captain to maneuver the ship somewhat. But one of the men was tossed into the ship as they rocked about 45 degrees to one side and then 45 degrees to the other. And that man drowned. The ships were desperate to Stay Together because they knew if they were separated, thered be one to rescue them. If something happened. And so how did they. Well, you know, they didnt have iphones. So what did they do . They would fire their guns repeatedly at a single location. But the wind eventually drowned out. The booming sound of the guns and in the mist and the storm and the giant hollow seas. All the eventually scattered. And the wager was separated from all left alone to its own destiny. And captain cheap was determined to try to get cape horn to prove to live up to the secret he had of himself as a heroic captain. And even though the had lost one of its mass, he manages guide them around cape horn and then up the coast to chile where he wants to get to a point where commodore had told him they should rendezvous if they were ever separated. And yet, captain chief and his other navigators on board like all seamen in that time, were sailing partially blind. They did not know exactly where they were. The map they could determine their latitude by reading the stars, which was easy, yet they had no way of knowing their longitude because that would require reliable clocks and they had not yet been invented. And so they were forced to rely on what was known as dead reckoning. And to simplify it, essentially amounted to inform guesswork and a leap of faith. There is a reason why its called dead many seamen ended up on the rocks dead. And the wagers navigators estimates estimation of their longitude turned out not only to be wrong, but wrong by hundreds of miles. And suddenly the ship is in what. Would later become known as the gulf of saros or the gulf of payne, and it hits a submerged rock and the rudder shatters and a two ton anchor falls through the hull, leaving a gaping hole in the ship for a moment is teetering on these rocks. And then another enormous wave sweeps the ship off this rocks. And its careening through a minefield of rocks sealing without a rudder and water pouring the hull until a last crashes into a cluster of rocks and the ship begins to break apart. And you have to understand, these ships were homes, many seamen. Most seamen back then do not actually even know how to swim. So you can imagine their terror as planks shatter the decks in the cabins collapse, the mast come down. Water surging up through through the bottom of the hull. Rats are scurrying upward. Those who have been suffering from scurvy have been in their hammocks for months and could not get out, drown. Yet the ship the not yet sink. It became wedged almost miraculously between a pillar. Two pillars of rocks. So it did not sink, at least yet completely. And the survivors up on to the remnants of the ship. And they peered out into the distance and through the mist, they could an island. And of course, thats where the real hull began about. 145 survivors, including captain the gunner, john bulkley and the young midshipman, john byron, make it ashore being ferried in a little transport boat, which is like a rowboat. And they hope will maybe this will be our salvation. Yet the island turns out to be complete, utterly inhospitable. It is cold. The temperature hovering around 30. It is constantly raining or sleeting. And whats more, they can find virtually no food. They have to eat. They find little bits of seaweed that they eat. Some mussels. They gradually exhaust them along the little part of their beach where theyre at. There were no animals on. The island, other than the birds that were flying in distance. They found some of sprouts of celery which mysteriously to them ended up curing their scurvy. And that was it. One british officer later described the island, a place where the soul, the dies in him. And this is where the test of their wits began. That island in, many ways, became a kind of lab retreat to test the human condition under the most extreme circumstances. And inevitably, it would their hidden nature, both the good and the bad. Now know most of you have not read the book, so i will not spoil the unfathomable saga that unfolded on that island. Yet what is so is that while they were there many the men as they began to starve would hold these great philosophical debates about the nature of leadership and duty and loyalty. And then later the prospect of mutiny. They did this as they gradually into warring factions. In which there were murders and thieves would try to steal their rations. And they asked the question, who has the right to over us . Does the captain because he was the captain of the ship by title automatically deserved to be our commander or in that democ sea of suffering. Could someone john bulkeley, though he did not come from the aristocracy emerge as a captain in his own right. And he would invoke these populist that are resonant with us today. He said such phrases life and liberty. Now, as the men were starving on that island, one day, almost amazingly emerges through the mist. A of canoes with native and on board. And they were members of the carrasco Community Group who the care squire lived in along the coast of chile 400 years back. And they had adapted to the very extreme conditions they tended to travel in small familiar groups. They lived almost off marine resources. They spend most of their time in canoes. They were so well adapted to the region that nassau later centuries later when i was looking into how humans might adapt to the inhospitable elements of space actually studied the care of squire in the region in the cara squire for example. They would keep warm by keeping a fire going in there, even in their canoes. And most important, they knew how to find food. They would travel up and down these coastline for hundred miles. They knew where the fish were located. And the reefs with sea urchins could be in where mussels and limpets could be in. And they provided and offered a lifeline to the castaways. They went out and actually them food. But this is also a story about imperialism and the prejudices that color us. And many of the castaways blinded by the prejudice mistreat the squire. And at that time also the casco are looking at the castaways who are spiraling into greater violence and they just pack up and disappear essentially were out of here, you know, and that the castaways on they descended further into a hobbesian state of depravity. And a few of the men also succumbed to cannibal ism. Now, increase ably. Several of these castaways make it back england and these journeys are unfathomable sagas in own right evoking the journey for example of shackleton century later. And again i wont spoil what happened in the book but what is so interesting. And what fascinated me about the story is not only what happened to these castaways the island and during their attempt to escape from the two facts, the two members of each faction. But what happened to them after they got back to england and as they feared they were hauled before a military tribunal where they feared they would be hanged for their crimes on the island. And so, again, they publish their accounts and after waging a war against the elements you it scurvy typhus wounds tidal waves ice bergs shipwreck the violence from their own ship means they now began to wage a war over truth. And just like today, there were allegations of disinformation. Mis information and fake journals. And while i was reaching, researching this story, i would go to the archives and read these old accounts and then i would come back home and i would flip on the tv or read the newspaper and what would i hear or turn on . Facts fake, news . What is true . I go back to the archive. And id be reading about this war over who would get to tell history, who had the right to tell it. And at the same time, there were efforts by those in power cover up the scandalous truth because the admiralty and in power were listening to these warring stories, wondering do we actually like any these stories. They make british officers and crew the vanguard of the empire. They suppose that of western civilization looked more like brutes than gentlemen. And so they also attempt to manufacture and tell their own version of the story, their own alternative history, their own mythic tale. Now, when i first began researching this story, i did so in a place very suited for paltry physical attributes, which was in the archives england. And what is amazing is that its a trove of these records, primary materials still exist. You could find journals and logbooks and muster. Somehow they survived. You know the storms perfect hurricane some came back even from the shipwreck. And it took me a while to read these documents. Documents can also speak to you in very unexpected ways. For example, i pulled the master books, some of the ships in the squadron. A master book is simply almost like a list of when somebody comes on board a ship, their name is listed. At the time they arrived, the rank officer or whatnot. But there were also an abbreviation. A little column with abbreviated symbols next to them. And at first when i looked at these, it must have books, they look just like gibberish to me and they really thought, oh, these it dont tell you anything. But eventually i was informed by a British Naval story and said, no, have to look at those abbreviations. And i kept these symbols next to so many members of the squadron. It kept saying after their name. Dee dee. Dee dee. Keep going down. Dee dee dee. On and on. Dee dee dee dee. What . Dee dee. Stand for. Discharge. These people all die during the voyage. And so seemingly archaic in a dying records that were crumbling for the 18th century, they revealed true, horrific toll. This expedition of nearly 2000 people went and more than 1300 perish. Shocking rate. Even for a voyage like this. But after about two years of doing research in the archives i began to be gnawed by that doubt sometimes hits you as a researcher fearing there was still more i needed know and that i might never able to fully understand what the cast ways had undergone and experience on that island unless i went there myself. And so thats when i decided to do something relatively. And i told my wife, im going to go to wager island. And i found chilean captain who could take me there. He had sent me a picture of the boat when i was in new york. And from the picture of the boat look really big and formidable like some Jacques Cousteau vessel. And i thought, okay, no problem. I got this. It took me about four days to eventually fly. We were going to leave from chiloe island, which is off the coast of chile, which about 350 miles north of what is now known as. Wager island and i had fly from to florida then to santiago and then i flew south and then took a car. And then i took a ferry. Eventually i get to the boat in chile island. After several days, i take one look at the boat and think that doesnt look like boat in picture. Alex pretty darn small. And were supposed leave right away. But it was so rough that we couldnt embark and so we were trapped in this port. And one day passed. And then another day the coast guard wouldnt let any boats in or out. And the just kept saying, i just, you know, a few to get across this gulf of good weather. And finally on the fourth or fifth day, the coast said, yes, you can leave. And we slipped at dawn. Here you can see my very glorious. I got the best captain, the best cabin on the boat and for those of you whove been to patagonia had never been there. You know, its amazing coastline. Looks like you took a plate, a glass, and you just shattered it. And there are all these is slits, these little islands. So if you weave them, you can actually be shielded from the ocean and wine through these misty passageways that are relatively calm. And again, i thought, oh, i got this. And we would stop the captain. The boat was heated by a it was wintertime. It was heated by a wood stove. So wed stop at the little is pull the boat up and the captain here would go off and cut wood and bring him on the ship. And thats how we warm. We would also hook up a hose up to the glacial stream, and thats how we would get water for the boat. Let just tell you, that was the cold, the shower ive ever taken. 15 seconds. And you were awake for a week. And. But eventually, about five days, the captain came to you. He said, well, now, you know, if were going to get to wager on them, were going to have to go out into the open ocean. Now. And thats when we headed out into those seas. And just for a little refresher course here i was back on that ship, sitting on the floor floor. You couldnt see, you couldnt. And so i had to figure out a way to pass the time. And so what foolish thing that i decide to do. I had my iphone a recording of moby and so i listened to moby. For 10 hours a day. Well, i tried not to be seasick and let me just step away novel absolutely recommend it perhaps not the most soothing thing to do when youre tumultuous seas but a captain was very and i dont describe the voyage in the book im telling you about it because it was so informative and it breathed life into my description and is my understanding i couldnt have written the book without going. Captain was very skilled. He lead around the headlands and the gulf of saros or i like to call it the gulf of paine. And there are references on the map to the stay to this old chapter of history that is bewildering to contemporary seamen. At one point, like captain on our map to several which had names like smith and hobbs and waller and i thought, wow, these are such curious sounding english names. And they seem kind of familiar to me. And i had brought with me some of the cast copies of the castaways journals, and sure enough, i found the names in. That was where when some of the castaways from some one of the factions had tried to escape wager island in two tiny little boats. One of the boats had sank and they had not enough room them on the other boat. So these four men were on this little of islands and this is why they are named after them. This is their only epitaph. And the captain didnt know why he, just knew those were the names. We also went by a canal cheap and byron island and eventually we got to wager island. And at dawn, after sleeping by the island at dawn the next morning we got into a little zodiac. Im going to show you a photograph because i look so good in it. I share this photograph, the wishes of my wife, just to show how bundled up i was. I had all these layers. A war hat, long johns and yet i was still really cold. And so i suddenly why in the journals the castaways kept describing using the term saying they were freezing. But now i understood that they were no doubt suffering from hypothermia. They only had scraps of clothing, much of which had disintegrated on the island. And eventually we got to the and we were able to explore it. The castaways had described a heart it was to walk on the island and enough it really is impossible to walk not only because its so mountainous, but its covered in this dense foliage and this boggy ground. So its like pushing through hedges, after going about 25 yards, youre just exhausted. And we explore the area where the encampment where the castaways had built their encampment centuries ago. Like them, we find no animals on the island other than the birds flying in the distance. We saw mussels along the shore. I found some of the kind to see some of the kind of celery which they had eaten. And i could now begin to understand why they descended into lord of the flies and why that british officer had described the island as the place, the soul, the man dies in him, and at one point a member, our group called down and pointed to an icy stream saying, look, look here. And i looked at the icy stream. And there just beneath the surface. I could see some planks of timber about yards long from an 18th century warship believed to be from majestys ship. The wager. We knew what they were because a joint british and chilean expedition had discovered them about a decade earlier. And here you can see a video we took of those planks. And nothing else remains of that furious struggle that once took place there or the dreams of empire and after all the time of documenting all the warring stories and the battle over the battle over survival all the sound and fury i just stood there listening to the eternal of the sea, be happy to answer any you have. We have about 15 minutes for your questions. Again, if you could bring your to the microphone to the folks back home for your question. Thank you you. Thank to you. And enough practice free library for this. Im honored to be in the same room as you you wrote mine in my wifes book of all time. I suspect this might become my new all time. Frank, you so much. What was it like as a writer to between the two books and how did you land . This is your next one. Yeah. So after killers of the moon, i was deeply in. Why certain parts of our history are told, and other parts get left out. Of course, of the flower moon was about one of the worst racial injustices and one of the more monstrous crimes in american history, which the systematic killings of members of the osage nation for their oil in the early 20th century in oklahoma. And yet while the osage obviously knew their history, so many others, the osage nation and i include among them, had never taught that history. We had, in effect, excised it from our consciousness. And i wondered why was certain histories get told and others dont and this story when i was doing Research Really seemed like a perfect illustration of how that happened. And i first came across the story when i was doing research on mutinies. Mutinies, a subject i was also interested in. I was always interested in that kind of rebellion that takes place in a military because these instruments of the state to order. And so what causes to suddenly disorder are they extreme outlaws or was there something unjust in the system that justified the rebellion a reason why i think mutinies fascinate us in literature and film for so long. Its why mutinies are so brutally quashed, often by the state because they posed such a threat. And when i was doing that research, i came across that 18 century count by john byron. And let me just say the account was written in this stilted english. The fs were printed as ss i mean, the essays were printed as fs and and it was kind of written in this convoluted prose. And im thinking how, what this what is this . But i kept pausing over these arresting passages, the perfect hurricane, scurvy madness, cannibal ism, although he only describes it as that last extremity and and i realized that this account held the clues to one of the more extraordinary sagas of survival and adventure i ever come across. And then, as i did more research, i began to see those other dimensions to the story that this was a story about the search, truth about the nature, truth about the nature of leadership, about imperialism and and about the way we tell history. And so thats what drew me to thank. Mr. Grand. Yes. The stories you tell the places you go and the way that caught danger. I wondered whether not you were still married. So youre so youre dating. Answer that question. And she must be a very special woman. Shes the best thing i ever got. Oh, right. But i wanted to know whether not your research captured any of the narratives of the free men of color that was on the boat and and and very briefly i wonder about marshall maritime that would give the British Government jurisdiction over what on the island. Thank you two Great Questions im going to do the last question. First, the so yes it actually raised the question and some of the seamen to find some of the alleged mutineers try to use that as a loophole because it was not explicit the rules. So they you know did they jurisdiction over them if the british navy wanted have jurisdiction over with them they have easily just asserted it later though they would change the rules to make it abundantly clear that if there was a shipwreck that. Captains power extended land and it came direct out of what happened on this island island. There was a free black seamen that we know who is on the wager. His name was john doug. He is mentioned in some of the accounts by other seamen and. He was somebody who had survived bvd. He was london. He went on this voyage. She had survived going around cape. He survived the storms, the tempest the scurvy outbreak and the shipwreck he then survived one of these unbilled evenly long voyages. And yet unlike and this is specifically to your question, unlike some of the other survivors, he did not have an opportunity to share his testimony or story. And the reason was he was seized and kidnaped, sold into slavery, which was a fear and a threat that often loomed over black seamen at that time and his is one of the many story that cannot told and. One of the points i try to emphasize is in the book is how empire was preserve their power not only by the stories they tell, but also by the stories they dont tell by those they leave out the pages torn out of the history books. And this is one of them. Two more questions. One here and thank you for your amazing work. Thank you. So im curious how this works at the new yorkers so do you say to david rudnick, ill be gone for few years. Just send the paycheck here. Im not going to this question. Im going to get in trouble. Come on. The cameras. If he doesnt notice, doesnt happen. But but seriously, i mean, this so hes a reporter. His dogged hes coming back at me. No, a yorker fan. And im curious how it goes. So i obviously spent many, many years devoting my resources and time specifically to the new yorker writing magazine pieces several each year. And then for a while, i kind of go off in the books and i would juggle. I remember i worked on the last days like was like i would try to juggle. I get book leave. But then i was trying to juggle the magazine stuff which was really hard and. As i focus more on books im a little like an emeritus. Is that the word professor who because the books take me so long. Killers of the flower moon took me half a decade. The wager took me half a decade. And the intensity. The research is so obsessive. I wish, i was quicker and i wish i was more talented to be able to do both. But i found i really cant. And so my wife is the most and understanding person in the world and second to that would be David Remnick remnick. I was another new yorker writer while you were speaking. Thats john mcphee. He gets awfully close to his subjects too. How would you compare your approach to his approach . Yeah. I mean, hes an inspiration you know, as a writer, you other writers to learn how you this thing mcphees been doing this a lot longer than i have and has really mastered form and so for ill give you two examples of how this can actually happen and play out for example, the first two chapters of the book are kind of set up. I have to kind of build the world, the wooden world of a ship so that you understand the civilization that will slowly then you have to know the world before, can understand what happens when it breaks apart. And so one of the books i looked at was david mccullough, the brooklyn bridge. I remember reading years earlier, and as it got, he always made engineering so exciting. And so i read that book none of its in my book, but it was just an inspiration. And thats how you do this. Thats how you write about construction and building and you make it vivid, exciting and come alive for the people. And there was a passage, a very specific passage in the wager. So im so glad asked this question where i was quoting the journals. And i kept to saying, oh theyre hungry, theyre hungry. And suddenly i. How would mcphee do this . Because the hunger, getting repetitive, how would handle this . And i exactly what he would do, he would just take the frag from the journals. This kind, obsessive repetition and quote from them. So you just keep hearing it and you see through their eyes. You recognize the pain opposed to saying, oh, theyre hungry, theyre hungry again. You just hear their obsessive mind going food. I look for food found no food. The call of hunger. Hunger is calling again. Where is food . Is food. And that was again just the direct inspiration thought. How will mcphee do that . And thats why i did that. So you really try to learn from the masters as much as you can. Thank you. Want to take this opportunity . Thank gran for his time. Thank all so much. So very quickly. David will be out in about 5 minutes to sign your books. Michael of fear right. There will be the head of the line to help organize the line. Again, ive bookshops here selling. Thanks for coming out this evening. Thank you all