What more can be written about the Titanic?   In a book recently released in Great Britain and coming out this October in the US,  Francis Wilson looks at the sinking and the impact on one of the more famous survivors – J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of J P Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine Company, which owned the White Star Line and the Titanic.  Ismay’s life would have been far less complicated, albeit much much shorter, if he had chosen not to jump into the lifeboat.

How to Survive the Titanic, or the Sinking of J Bruce Ismay by Frances Wilson

A wily, astute writer, Wilson places at the heart of her story a simultaneously small and momentous act: Ismay’s “jump” into a lifeboat. Vilified as a coward, he would later refuse either to apologise or to explain, repeating blandly that “the boat was there” and “the deck was empty”. Yet this one act became a fulcrum for his whole life story. When he stepped quietly into Collapsible C, Ismay entered a looking-glass world.

Willson apparently goes on to draw parallels between Ismay and Conrad’s tragic character “Lord Jim.”  Without having read the book this appears to be a considerable stretch. We will be reviewing the book on its release in October.

Available at Amazon.co.uk or for preorder at Amazon.com.