SAILING AT THE EDGE OF DISASTER

This elegant nautical memoir tells the story of a young woman’s courageous personal struggle for independence.

Garber’s debut coming-of-age memoir, Implosion (2018), was about trauma and healing. The author’s latest book revisits her troubled teenage years when she and her siblings were allegedly tormented by their abusive architect father. She focuses on time spent seafaring with her brother Woodie on a sailing-school ship when she was 17. The two were sent away after their father, complaining that he had “two problem kids,” declared that 14-year-old Woodie needed to “get his life in shape.” The book opens in 1971 with Garber fearfully climbing the rigging of a ship, terrified further by the voice of her father telling her she is “weak.” She recounts her growing sense of independence as she learned about sailing—everything from celestial navigation to splicing ratlines. Garber vividly animates her and Woodie’s voyage on the 360-foot Antarna (now called the Sea Cloud), which set out from Miami; visited Grand Bahama, Key West, and Veracruz; and ended its journey abruptly in Panama. The crew faced numerous terrifying moments, including nearly sinking and being held by Panamanian soldiers for a drug search. On returning home to Ohio, Garber felt like she slipped back into the unbearable trap of family life, and she and her brother contemplated patricide. Her father’s sudden illness, however, allowed her to escape.  

The prose here is courageously frank; Garber is unafraid to explore even the darkest, most unsettling moments of her father’s alleged abuse. When recalling the secret “backrubs” he gave her when her mother was away, she writes: “I declared to myself in a silent cold fury, I will feel nothing, when his hand stroked below my waist, across my belly and hips and thighs.” One of the pleasures of the book is watching the experiences at sea teach the author to be resilient: “I’d learned that liberation was sweeter than holding on. I would risk everything I had to save us.” The author also effortlessly evokes the exhilaration of sailing: “My hair whipped across my face. I loved looking up at the taut white sail, the way the boom flew across the deck as we came about, before we caught the wind again.” Readers familiar with Garber’s memoir Implosion will be aware of the author’s troubled growth into adulthood. Some details are naturally repeated in this book but elegantly reframed in context with her sea voyage. Still, fans of straightforward nautical memoirs may hope for an even more detailed account of the journey—coordinates and all. But although the reader is allowed to taste the sea, the emphasis here is on Garber’s psychological odyssey. At one point Garber writes: “Each dawn I watched the transformation of one thing into another, of night into day, as it spread and expanded.” As the memoir progresses, it is interesting to observe Garber’s own incremental transformation into a strong young woman. A detailed diagram of the Sea Cloud is included.

Powerful, confessional writing combined with vivid depictions of sailing.