In Quiet Desperation, Savage Delight UNCW s David Gessner gets Thoreau starnewsonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from starnewsonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Pulaski was about 30 miles off the coast of Wilmington on the night of June 14, 1838, when one of its boilers exploded, blowing out the side of the vessel. It sank within 45 minutes.
Called the Titanic of the South, the Pulaski had been carrying some of the cream of society from Savannah, Georgia, on their annual migration north to Saratgoa Springs, N.Y., and other resorts, to escape the heat of a summer before air conditioning.
Another similarity to the Titanic was the condition of the lifeboats. Pulaski had just two, and they were in such bad condition that one sank almost immediately.
Of course, I was right. The second installment, Black Coral, is now out, with no signs of a sophomore slump. Once again Mayne and his sleuths wade into the murky, python-infested waters of South Florida, where the plot runs much faster than the currents.
Mayne s heroine is Sloan McPherson, a diver, sometime grad student in marine archaeology and, now, an officer with Florida s new state Underwater Investigative Unit.
As our story opens, Sloan s doing a favor for the Highway Patrol, recovering a body from a pickup that ran off the road into Pond 65, in the outflow from a nuclear power plant.
Lynn R. Welborn grew up on Carolina Beach in the 1970s and by all accounts, including his, had a terrific time.
Welborn began chronicling those adventures a few years ago in Crazy Beach, which probably qualifies as a roman a clef, a fancy literary term meaning that it s based on a true story but the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
He had so much fun that Crazy Beach has now extended into three volumes. Well, not volumes exactly. Welborn is a child of the golden age of the Rock Era. As a pre-teen, he and a buddy actually stowed away on a van to Woodstock THE Woodstock. (He has documentary evidence.) In those days, boys and girls, you didn t download your music; it came in 33 1/3 vinyl discs.