I believe Mr Murphy did his homework and researched the facts. I also believe that he took a lot of license with the thoughts and words of the characters he voices in Adrift. The book starts quite slowly, setting the scene for the shipping industry in the 1800's, which was a bit tedious for me. Once the action begins and we meet the characters and share their experiences, I found it more interesting. At times the character histories got a bit bogged down, and I did skim . Overall, it was a good read, and an interesting piece of history.

A very well put together account of the sinking of the John Rutledge, a packet ship which was carrying Irish immigrants in 1856 and stuck an iceberg. Adrift by Brian Murphy was so engrossing and emotional to read, I was sad to read the trauma and icy deaths of the passengers but yet rejoiced at the rescue of the crewhand who carried the story of the tragedy back to civilization.
Full Disclosure: I was allowed to read a copy of this book for free as a member of NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not influenced to give a positive review.

The book was really informative, and I feel like I learned quite a bit about the ships that crossed the Atlantic and the perils they faced. Wow. It really took a lot of courage to, not only join one of those ships as part of the crew, but to scrape together every bit of money you could to buy passage on one of those ships in an effort to make a new life in America. Conditions were not favorable by any stretch of the imagination.

The book was about halfway done before the ship at the center of the story - the John Rutledge - encountered the iceberg and began to sink, and those on the lifeboat were set adrift - so I'm not sure that Adrift is the right title for this book. But I can't think of anything better.

While the background information was very interesting, once the 'action' began the book really grabbed me. I could almost feel that cold Atlantic sea and that icy wind.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this.

Da Capo Press and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Adrift. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Adrift is a nonfiction account of the John Rutledge, a three mast packet ship that went down in the winter of 1856, and the surviving passengers that huddled in an open lifeboat on the Atlantic. Travel in the "ice alley" off the coast of Newfoundland was dangerous in the 1800's because of a lack of information regarding ice in the area. Ship captains had to rely on weeks old information from those who crossed that area of the Atlantic. When the ice claimed the John Rutledge as its sacrifice, the 120 immigrants and the crew bound from Liverpool to New York offloaded the ship into lifeboats. By the time that another ship came around, the only survivor was a young seaman named Thomas W. Nye.

Author Brian Murphy, using recollections from the young man, as well as credible sources from the time, has painted a grim portrait of the harrowing journey for Nye and the tragedy for the others. Because of holes in the information regarding the John Rutledge, the author has filled in details where necessary and spent a great deal of time on periphery information regarding the time period. The compelling story of the crossing and the sinking of the ship gets lost, which is a disappointment. The author feeds little details about the inhabitants of the ship, but then goes off in different directions without any hint of a transition. The absence of sufficient lifeboats and the relative lack of preparation for a possible catastrophe led to the deaths, but the author almost glossed over those details. The straightforward telling of the story does not allow readers to form an emotional connection, despite Nye's harrowing tale of nine days adrift in the Atlantic, losing passenger after passenger to the elements. For readers who are interested in early transcontinental travel and at-sea tragedies, Adrift might be to their liking. I did learn something from the book, but I felt that it lacked the details and structure that it needed to make Adrift a compelling read.

January, 1856. Captain Alexander Kelley is sailing the packet ship John Rutledge from Liverpool to New York, completing his first transatlantic voyage as a captain. He leaves his wife behind in Liverpool as the voyage will be rough given the time of year, and promises to pick her up in the spring when they can return to New York together. It is a promise he will break. After 35 days at sea on February 20th, 1856, The John Rutledge struck an iceberg in the Atlantic and sank. 13 survivors boarded life boats. Nine days later, the only survivors were one crew member and the ship's log book.

A disaster tale such as this one is even more emotional when it's a true story. Murphy weaves the story of the fate of the John Rutledge with great skill. It chilled me to the bone thinking about the few survivors floating in open boats in the freezing cold elements, only to die. And the many emigrants from Ireland -- men, women and children seeking a better life -- who never made it off the ship. I had to watch two Disney movies after I finished this book to get the sad, emotional thoughts out of my head. Those poor people....and what a horrible, lonely way to die.

In his introduction to the book, the author says: Scores of ships -- carrying tens of thousands of passengers and crew -- met a similar fate in the Atlantic before twentieth-century advances in communications technology enabled better advance notice on looming ice fields and approaching storms. The names of some lost ships are remembered. So are a few of the prominent figures that perished at sea. But almost totally forgotten are the others who went down with them: emigrants, seamen, travelers, merchants and envoys. Entire families. Young men and women striking out for a new life. Children too young to grasp the dangers of an Atlantic crossing. They are the anonymous dead. The sea is good at swallowing lives without a trace. It happened that way for so many.....dreams of a new life over so quickly...and now nobody even remembers their names or anything about them. I thought about each and every one of them as I read this book.

A book that can elicit a profound emotional response in a reader is well written. This book sucked me into the story of this doomed ship and kept my total attention from start to finish. I felt an emotional tie to the people I knew were going to die. Brian Murphy is a skilled story-teller. Excellent book. Heart-breaking story. Anyone who enjoys adventure stories, historical tales or the sea will love this book. It's hard to read -- the outcome is bleak. But I'm glad a skilled writer told their story. Those who crossed the ocean before the age of modern communications and safety precautions were taking a huge risk. So many were lost. I'm glad that some are still remembered.

I have a son in the Navy and even though I am not really a religious person, I thought of this naval hymn while reading this story:

For Those In Peril On The Sea

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm doth bind the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

O Saviour, Whose almighty word
The winds and waves submissive heard,
Who walkedst on the foaming deep,
And calm amid its rage didst sleep:
O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea!

O Sacred Spirit, who didst brood
Upon the chaos dark and rude,
Who bad’st its angry tumult cease,
And gavest light, and life, and peace:
O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea!

O Trinity of love and power,
Our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe’er they go;
And ever let there rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Perseus Books/DeCapo Press via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

Brian Murphy writes a well-researched tale of shipwreck in “Ice Alley” in the North Atlantic between Greenland and Canada.
He details the seafaring culture of the Northeastern seaboard, the economics of packet ships, and the grim plight of steerage passengers on the packet ships. I have a personal interest in this subject, so even though the first part of the book was slow, I still found it interesting. The pace and the excitement level pick up substantially when the ship hits the iceberg.

Adrift is okay. It's a lot of history, and I, honestly, got a little bored. I think you have to have an interest in the topic to really enjoy it.

I didn't enjoy this book at the beginning. I literally had to force myself to read it, in order to see what the good reviews were all about. It was just detail after detail after detail, sometimes rambling so much the author seemed to get distracted from the plot. There's no doubt he did voluminous research for this book, but I felt it was just weighed down with too much detail.

Then, about 40 percent in, after the ship hit the iceberg, I was riveted. I couldn't read fast enough to find out what happened to the 13 people on the lifeboat.

Someone has to have a strong interest in boating or the early maritime industry to get all the way through this book, in my opinion. But once the author got to the actual plot--the survival story of the passengers--it was quite interesting.

The John Rutledge, a three-master out of Liverpool and bound for America in 1856, hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic and goes down. Although there were several lifeboats full of passengers, there was only one survivor, Thomas Nye. Authors Murphy and Vlahou, use Nye's notes, newspaper articles from the time, and historical records to recreate the story as it might have unfolded. They create a rich account of the life of Irish immigrants, mid-nineteenth century sailing, as well as the harrowing tale of Nye's survival. Plenty of sailing history for maritime buffs.

An outstanding tale of tragedy and salvation at sea.

In Adrift, Murphy gives us a riveting account of the tragic fate of the packet ship John Rutledge during a harrowing Atlantic crossing in 1856. The book is rife with sociocontextual detail and reads beautifully, about as close to prose as nonfiction can get.

The shipwreck itself will keep readers on the edge of their proverbial seats, though it's the time recounted in the lifeboat where the story really hits its stride. The scene is at once atmospherically eerie to the point of almost feeling surreal and also brutally raw.

The "Lifeboat as Moral Dilemma" is always a fascinating topic, and this iteration doesn't disappoint. It actually comes off as more gripping that almost every fictional account I've read of a similar situation.

Beautifully, intensely written from start to finish, Adrift is that rare nonfiction offering that never drags (even for a paragraph). For added atmosphere, I recommend listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl score while reading.

Adrift is a distressing story about loss and survival in the Atlantic. Adrift recounts the story of Thomas W. Nye after the passenger ship he was on capsized. This tale focused on his fight to survive on a raft with thirteen others. This book was packed with both history and action. I found myself falling into the story, desperate to discover what happened next. If you love stories about survival in harsh elements then you will enjoy this book!

The timeline of events was well established and I found the information on the ship and iceberg activity the year of the tragedy to be very explanatory. This was one of my favorite survival tales to date. I really enjoyed this story and my heart broke for those lost to the ocean. Adrift was released today, September 4th. I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Found this book very interesting, if a bit meandering. I requested it because I had just finished watching AMC's The Terror when this one popped up, and it seemed a bit too much like coincidence to ignore, but I'm really glad I did, even if the two only share passing similarities (at least tone wise).

It is indeed a completely wild true story, and one which I am surprised I've never heard of (though I suppose there are many tragedies at sea, still), especially given the immense odds against all of those on board the John Rutledge ship when it went down, and how those odds played out.

I do think however that the main think I can take away from this is that I would honestly just throw myself into the waves. Gimme that sweet quick death, baby!

Thanks to Netgalley and Da Capo Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Adrift is a captivating look at nautical life in the mid-1800s. Brian Murphy obviously did exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) research in writing this book, but in doing so, puts the reader fully in the time period. His descriptive powers are well-developed; I still feel as if I'm shivering in the life-boat waiting to be rescued!

The book is about the ship the John Rutledge, which sailed from London on January 16, 1856, with a full crew, 1 cabin passenger and over 120 steerage passengers (mostly Irish emigrants), and sank on February 19th after hitting an iceberg en route to New York City. The story is told to us in third person, and in the point of view of Thomas Nye, a 21-year old seaman on the Rutledge who was the sole survivor.

Adrift gives me new appreciation for the dangers and hardships of sailing the seas in earlier times. Nearly 830 passengers and crew were lost in the first three months of 1856 in the North Atlantic's four main wrecks; the John Rutledge, the Pacific, Driver and Ocean Queen. More than 300 ships were lost globally during the first half of 1856, equating to the loss of thousands of lives and a financial loss of 16 million dollars (half a billion dollars in today's money).

While the book is very informative, I did find it a bit difficult and disconnecting to try to follow the many tangents Murphy took as he explained something/gave background to the reader. It's as if you're trying to follow a conversation where someone says something that makes them think of something else that they want to explain, which then branches to another topic and so on until the reader is saying "wait a minute, how did we get here from there? What were we talking about?"

Nevertheless, this is a good read.

Favorite quote: " Morality is elastic when it comes to our own fate. It bends and stretches to fit the circumstance."

Many thanks to NetGalley and Da Capo Press for allowing me to read a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Here’s a true story about the sinking of a much smaller ship than the Titanic that occurred in 1856. The ship carried mail and supplies as well as around 100 Irish immigrants heading to the United States.
They managed to lower five lifeboats. Four drifted away and were never found. The fifth, containing 13 people, a couple of blankets and a tiny amount of food and water, spent nine days adrift more than 400 miles off Newfoundland.
Thomas W. Nye, a crewman from Fairhaven, Mass., had the sea in his veins. Many of his ancestors had been ship captains. He, along with an Irish couple and their sons, an English woman and her daughter, a newlywed couple and other crew members, made up the little group of castaways. During the ordeal, some died from the cold, others from panic or drinking ocean water. Nye, along with the ship’s log he had saved before boarding the lifeboat, was found.
This fascinating book is based on his firsthand descriptions, newspaper accounts, ship’s logs, diaries and family archives.
This tragedy serves to make clear that the decisions made during a catastrophe like this definitely are life and death.

Brian Murphy brings us not just the history of the last sailing of the John Rutledge, a packet ship out of New England, but details of the horrendous weather and many loses felt that winter of 1856. From the first of January until the end of March, nearly 830 passengers and crew were lost if just four of the lost ships making their way from Europe to the U.S.

The mid-nineteenth century is a period of our human history that I love. And I do what research I can before I ask for a book from Netgalley or Goodreads, picking books I really want to read. Adrift was one of those intriguing books with a few five star reviews on Goodreads, and a couple of one or two stars. I loved this story for the very reason those one or two star reviewers didn't - Brian Murphy researched this time in history, the problems and perks involved in the seafaring life at that time, and this year of monstrous weather that cost so much in in lives and ships and goods. He shares all of that incredible research with us. This was a book I read cover to cover without a break, and one I will keep in my research shelf. These are facts I will want to visit again.

I received a free electronic copy of this history of the January 16th, 1856 sailing of the John Rutledge packet ship carrying one cabin passenger, a full measure of officers and crew and over a hundred and twenty, mostly Irish, immigrants in steerage from the River Mersey in Liverpool to New York from Netgalley, Brian Murphy, and Perseus Books, Da Capo Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

This is a remarkable tale that was well researched and well written. It tells the history of a particularly bad year for North Atlantic shipping, 1856. It focuses on the packet shipping boat, the John Rutledge, and its captain, crew, passengers, and cargo. The history of packet shipping of the era was particularly interesting to me. I thought cargo shipments and passenger liners were generally kept separate, but what happened in this era were that passengers were squeezed below decks and kept in squalid conditions for the voyage that could take three weeks to over two months.

One interesting fact that I can take away from this book is that icicles formed from saltwater has much less salinity than saltwater.

The dramatized elements in this book put me off a bit even though much of what was said during the accident of the John Rutledge is unknown, or simply could not be known. I would have preferred more direct quotes from the 1st mate's log, and more direct quotes from newspapers.

I have read many books that cover shipping of this era. Despite some of the things I did not like about the book, this one ranks highly among other shipping books that I've read.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC through Netgalley for my unbiased review.

This may have been a good book but the formatting and typos were so distracting, it was hard to tell. The plight of trans-Atlantic ships in the 1800's makes for interesting reading but there was quite a bit of unnecessary background info included that made it difficult to follow at times.

Ice in the North Atlantic in winter is normal, but when ships put into ports along the east coast of North America in 1856, those aboard reported alarming sightings. Not only were icebergs and ice slabs far more numerous and farther south than usually found, they were huge. Some were described as being wider that New York’s Central Park and taller than the clock tower of London’s Westminster Palace once these were completed. They proved equally dangerous. Between January and March, some 830 men, women, and children perished and their ships vanished. And from the four largest of these vessels, only one man survived.

The 1850s was a decade of turbulence – the Crimean War and conflicts between those favoring slavery and those who did not – and change. The heyday of sail had ebbed, giving rise to steamships that were faster and more luxurious and not dependent on the wind to propel them from one location to another. But few emigrants could afford these new vessels, so they travelled aboard wooden sailing ships to arrive at their destinations. One such vessel was the John Rutledge, a packet ship christened in Baltimore, Maryland just five years before she left Liverpool, England for New York City on 16 January 1856.

Howland & Ridgway owned the Rutledge and hired Alexander Kelley to captain the her. Although he had served on packet ships before, this was his first time in command on a transatlantic crossing. The passage to London went smoothly and among those who sailed with him were half-owner James Lawrence Ridgway, Alexander’s wife Irene, first mate Samuel Atkinson and his wife, boatswain William Ryan, and able seaman Thomas W. Nye. The last was not yet twenty-two, but came from a long line of New Bedford sailors, some of whom were well-known among the merchant trade. When it came time to return to New York, Kelley persuaded Irene to remain in Liverpool until spring, and Ridgway chose to sail home to his family aboard the Pacific, a luxury steamship that would leave later, but arrive earlier, in New York. Several new sailors joined the crew, among them John Daley from Scotland. Aside from her cargo, the Rutledge carried steerage passengers, including William Henderson and his family: a wife, two sons and two daughters (ranging in age from five to sixteen), as well as his sister and niece who was one year old.

When the Rutledge set sail, Captain Kelley was aware of the ice reports, but not having the advantage of today’s technology, the information they contained was outdated. A month later, he realized that navigating the North Atlantic would take much longer than anticipated because of the proliferation of ice and the frequent storms the ship encountered. Four days later, on the 20th of February, the packet ship hit an iceberg and began taking on water. Unable to stop the flow, everyone was ordered to abandon ship. Not everyone got off, although many did. For those in the lifeboats they hoped and prayed that another ship would soon come to their rescue.

This book is a heartrending and compelling account of shipwreck and survival. Maps, illustrations, occasional footnotes, an explanation of types of vessels, a family tree, bibliography, and index further enhance the reading experience. Murphy, a journalist for The Washington Post, pieced together the story of what happened and the people involved from family archives, civil and church documents, shipping ledgers, interviews, and published material found in collections in Europe and the United States. Much of the dialogue is skillfully imagined –fully explained in his introduction – and, when combined with the personal histories and period details, vividly recreates life and sailing in the middle of the 19th century. His primary purpose is to tell the story of one ship and the people aboard her, yet a secondary goal is for the book to serve as an elegy to all the forgotten men, women, and children who lost their lives. He accomplishes both with dignity and passion. Adrift is so riveting that even in the midst of summer heat, the wintry cold seeps so deeply into your bones that not even the warmest wool will dispel the bleak aloneness of being surrounded by water and ice in a small boat where the only other occupants are the dead.

I received a free Kindle copy of Adrift by Brian Murphy courtesy of Net Galley  and Perseus Books -De Capo Press, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as the description made it sound interesting.  This is the first book by Brian Murphy that I have read (and the last).

This book was well researched, but the author's writing style was a challenge. He tends to drift off of the main story line frequently and then comes back to it. It is interesting when he is focused on the main story, but not so much when he drifts to other topics.

I had high hopes for this book, but it was a disappointment. Others found it much more fascinating than I did, so I will not tell you to give it a pass. But you may want to check it out of your local library before deciding to purchase a copy.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I read Brian Murphy’s 81 Days Below Zero, and thoroughly enjoyed the story and the storytelling. He’s a great writer, and while this is based on one person’s experience and retelling, Murphy makes the whole story come to life.

The John Rutledge is a packet ship going from Liverpool to New York in 1856. Its cargo included mail, dry goods and more than 100 passengers, mostly Irish immigrants hoping to escape poverty and find a better life. After the Rutledge hits an iceberg, only one man survived, Thomas Nye, a member of the crew. Murphy recreates the journey from Nye’s story and other research.

Nye made his way, with the ship log, to a lifeboat along with 12 others. We are then witness to the passengers succumbing to the harsh elements, and the madness that takes over after they drink seawater. Once Nye has given up hope and is waiting for the elements to take him, he spies a ship. With his last ounce of strength, he is able to summon it and thereby becomes the lone survivor.

I find stories of survival fascinating, and this book was no exception. There is a lot of history given at the beginning of the book, and some parts seem to be disjointed. The actual sinking of the ship doesn’t happen until halfway through the book, but I still found it to be quite interesting. All the historical facts and stories helped to place me in the mindset of life at that time. It may seem a little slow at first, but I highly recommend this book.