Review: The Wager

4 stars. Like so many others, I love David Grann's writing style and consider him a must-read author. I was so excited to snag this from the library and will probably buy it as gifts for others in my life. It is without a doubt a masterful, beautifully-written, well-researched narrative that is truly stranger than fiction. And not for the faint of heart, either. Anyone sensitive to animal harm: check TWs. I did not, and ended up crying on the train and then in the bar after.

In the early 1740s, a squadron of ships, in an effort to gain advantage over their rival/enemy-in-conflict Spain, set out from Britain with the goal of capturing a Spanish ship full of treasure. Their route: hazardous. Their group: literally forced into it by press gangs. The conditions: filthy. Their supplies: unfortunately lacking citrus. One horrible thing leads to another and one of the ships, the Wager, gets separated from the group and wrecks off the coast of Patagonia. And that is basically only the beginning.

As someone who is fully fascinated by the dark side of life - true crime, natural and unnatural disasters, cults, creepy stuff, unsolved mysteries - I shouldn't have been bothered by this. I mean, one of the earliest internet rabbit holes I ever climbed down was Jack the Ripper. The Terror is one of my favorite books of all time. I suppose it's partly a testament to David Grann's writing, and maybe also the extreme grittiness of this particular story, but I honestly had to read it sort of... through my fingers. I was really bothered by the... why of it all. 

And more existentially, the why of any of it. Existing is hard enough, why do we, historically, consistently, universally, distinctively, make it harder for ourselves? Why do we insist on pushing outward and inward and upward in damaging ways? I guess it's in our nature, a concept that becomes less and less easy to accept as this story unravels. It knocked at my brain after every brutal twist: none of this had to happen.

Grann's answer to this is imperialism. I've read in other reviews that his use of the Empire to frame the story this way is sloppy, lousy, lame, ill-fitting or simply incorrect. I disagree. The Empire's obsession with dominance is the reason why the men were on this voyage in the first place. It contributed to and informed their actions and decision-making - even at the most desperate times, even facing death. It is an irrefutable context and yes, he sort of bops you round the head with it more than once, but he couldn't have told the story without it. 

Anyhoo, I couldn't put this down. The short chapters - and the constant twists and turns - kept me turning pages and as philosophically harrowing as it was (which is surely kind of the point), I highly recommend it. This is storytelling at its finest. 

The Wager on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads