GRAVEYARD OF THE PACIFIC

A riveting story of maritime tragedies and a personal passage.

The Columbia River, writes Oregon-based journalist and former Rolling Stone contributing editor Sullivan, is “the most vital natural feature west of the Rocky Mountains.” He continues, “only the Missouri/Mississippi system exceeds it in annual runoff, and there are years when the Columbia’s flow is greater….The Columbia is unique among all rivers of the world…in the combination of its close proximity to the ocean and the tall mountain ranges that feed it all along the way there.” But it is the Columbia Bar, site of the river’s harrowing collision with the sea, that earned it the sobriquet “Graveyard of the Pacific.” In the fascinating introduction, the author chronicles the geological origins of the Columbia and its many tributaries and torturous route to the sea. Yet it is Sullivan’s gripping, vividly detailed accounts of nautical disasters at the Columbia Bar that make the book such an achievement for the three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee. The author digs deep to recount the most famous disasters at the Bar from the 18th to the 20th centuries, punctuating them with skillfully distilled biographies of notable figures of this period. The author’s personal story—from growing up with an abusive father to his 2021 attempt to cross the Bar by trimaran—courses through the book like an intermittent current. Well written and affecting, it risks becoming a mere framing device—until the compelling final chapter. Clearly, Sullivan wants to offer more than a dramatic historical account of shipwrecks and rescue operations, including his narrative of the hoped-for catharsis of a 69-year-old adventurer. In a touching coda about his friend and fellow sailor, their exploits, and their shared survival from lifelong traumas, the author finds a path to reconciliation and a reaffirmation of manhood that defies our caustic modern labels.

A strikingly rendered tale of the hard and lasting costs of courage.