THE WRECK OF THE MENTOR

A vivid castaway story.

From the Odyssey to Lord of the Flies, the shipwreck genre may be the world’s oldest, and few readers will object to this addition from best-selling maritime historian Dolin, author of Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World (2024). He opens as the American whaleship Mentor encountered a storm sailing the Philippine Sea in 1832 and struck a coral reef. Half the crew of 23 tried to escape in a whaleboat that immediately sank. The 11 remaining left the following morning when the storm calmed. After spending the night on an uninhabited atoll, they awoke to find a large canoe of Indigenous people who attacked and robbed them before they escaped. After several miserable days at sea, they reached a large island where they were again robbed, then taken to the group’s chief. With fond memories of the bounties white men could provide, the chief agreed to allow them to stay and build boats in exchange for help battling his enemies, plus the promise to send more muskets and supplies once they returned home. After completing the boats, the shipmates sailed until supplies ran out; they were barely alive on reaching a tiny island whose inhabitants beat them, robbed them of everything, including their clothes, and enslaved them. Do the crewmen survive? Are they saved? Dolin relates it all in this riveting account. And as he writes, the tale of the Mentor “is not just another example of a shipwreck during the Age of Sail. It is one of the most complex and intriguing of such stories ever told. …It spans multiple years and islands and provides insights into the clash of civilizations and cultures that attended the West’s commercial onslaught in the Pacific.”

High-seas adventures that’ll keep readers hungrily turning the pages.