SALEM FRIGATE

by John Jennings ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 8, 1946

Jennings combines some of the qualities of Forester and Roberts, without quite the gift of story telling of either. In feel of period, in historical background, in isolated vignettee, Jennings is on a par with the others. But he, along with too many of his ilk, loses his plot interest in his history. Salem Frigate is a story of two men, chance met through an accident, and pitted against each other in love and the fortunes of war and peace. The story starts in Salem, in the period when an infant industry, the American merchant marine, was in the making in the Salem shipyards -- and when war was brewing on the high seas, war which involved Spain, the Barbary piratee, France, England and the young U.S.A. Tom Tisdale, former surgeon's apprentice, is clerking at the shipyards; Ben Price, whom he rescued on a story night, gets a job as carpenter's assistant. And the two men, instinctively antagonistic, marry the wrong girls. From then on it is war, whether at home in Salem, or on the Kasen, built in their shipyard, counting both men as part of her complement of crew. They sail round the Morn; they are taken captive in an encounter with Barbary pirates; they are prisoners in Tripoli and escape to worse perils of the desert; and always the conflict between them over Selina, married to Tom, or Patience, married to Ben, colors their every move. There's adventure and romance and atmosphere a-plenty, but the reader's interest flags in overlong passages remote from the story.

Pub Date: Aug. 8, 1946

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946

Categories: FICTION