"A stupendous feat of reportage."
-Ron Powers, cowriter of Flags of Our Fathers
Praise for Desperate Hours
"Goldstein's book is packed with detail. . . . This description of the Doria's sinking is especially moving."
-The New York Times
"A stupendous feat of reportage. Goldstein has virtually put us into lifeboats and sent us hurtling into the North Atlantic on the night of July 25, 1956."
-Ron Powers, cowriter, Flags of Our Fathers, and author of Dangerous Water and Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore
On an extraordinary summer's night in 1956, in a fog off Nantucket, the world-renowned ocean liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish liner Stockholm and, eleven hours later, tragically sank. But in that brief time the Doria became, after the Titanic, the most storied vessel of the century, as nearly 1,700 people were saved in an unforgettable rescue punctuated by countless acts of heroism amid confusion, terror, and even cowardice.
In the tradition of Walter Lord's A Night To Remember, Desperate Hours re-creates the ill-fated voyage, from the passengers' parting waves at Genoa, to their last evening highball in the Doria's lavish lounge, to the unbelievable realization that catastrophe was imminent. Richard Goldstein draws from dozens of interviews, court documents, memoirs, and reports that relate never-before-told stories. He also presents technical findings that shed light on the blame for the disaster. The result is a definitive history of a fateful day, a legendary liner, and a deadly shipwreck now considered by scuba divers to be the Mount Everest of the deep.
Language
Place of publication
Publishing group
Turner Publishing Company
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 146 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
ISBN-13
978-0-471-42352-2 (9780471423522)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
RICHARD GOLDSTEIN is an editor and writer for the New York Times, where he has worked since 1980. He is the author of America at D-Day and Mine Eyes Have Seen: A First-Person History of the Events That Shaped America, which was an alternate selection of the Literary Guild.
Acknowledgments. Introduction. PART I: THE VOYAGE 1. "Brace Yourself". 2. "A Floating Art Gallery". 3. "Take the Doria, You'll Never Forget It". 4. "A Picture of Scandinavian Efficiency". 5. "The Times Square of the Atlantic". 6. "Each Shall Alter Her Course to Starboard". PART II: THE COLLISION. 7. "Why Doesn't He Whistle?" 8. "I Think We Hit an Iceberg". 9. "Don't Worry, There's Nothing Wrong". 10. "Need Immediate Assistance". PART III: THE RESCUE. 11. "This Is No Drill". 12. "How Many Lifeboats?" 13. "We Are Bending Too Much". 14. "Let's Pray to St. Ann". 15. "We Won't Leave You". 16. "Lady, You're Lucky to Be Alive". 17. "Light Up Everything, Quickly". 18. "You Have to Have Courage". 19. "Get Your Cameras". 20. "Bulletin ... Bulletin ... Bulletin". 21. "You May Go, I'm Staying". 22. "Seaworthiness Nil". 23. "That Thing's Going Down in Five Minutes". 24. "It Is Incomprehensible". 25. "How Good God Is to Me". 26. "Oh, What a Climax". 27. "It's My Baby". 28. "I Lost My Love for Italians". 29. "This Is a Jumbled Story". PART IV: THE QUESTIONS. 30. "The Passengers Were Highly Excitable". 31. "It Could Have Been a Patch of Fog". 32. "The Stability of the Ship Was Low". 33. "I Could Have Changed Course". PART V: THE MEMORIES. 34. "Why Did I Get Spared?" 35. "The Poor Man Was Destroyed". PART VI: THE SHIPWRECK. 36. "It's Got the Mystique". Appendix. Sources. Index.
