Shadow of the Titanic by Andrew Wilson, Simon & Schuster UK, $40
For 705 passengers on the Titanic the sinking wasn’t the end of the story but the beginning of their new lives as “survivors”.
Most had suffered the loss of husbands or children, some had to answer for their actions that night, and others simply couldn’t live with the memory of the trauma they’d experienced.
Pretty eighteen-year-old Madeleine Astor became a very wealthy widow overnight, but threw it all away for love, ending up with a penniless boxer who beat her badly.
Was she punishing herself out of guilt at her survival? Was the irrepressible Lady Duff Gordon lying when she told an inquiry that when safely aboard her lifeboat with just four other passengers, she couldn’t hear the cries of those drowning around her?
And what drove ten survivors to suicide? Andrew Wilson’s gripping and perceptive account shows just what a long dark shadow the Titanic cast over the lives of all the survivors.
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