THE RAFTSMEN

This hybrid of narrative nonfiction and graphic novel dramatically chronicles the true story of four men and two kittens who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from Canada to England in 1956.

Henri Beaudout, a veteran of the French Resistance and the French army, left postwar France to settle in Canada. Haunted by his wartime experiences, Henri felt restless and adrift. When he read a story about an indigenous man from the Americas found in his canoe on a beach in Portugal long before Europeans traversed the Atlantic, Henri became obsessed with the idea of sailing across the North Atlantic by the power of winds and currents alone. Henri recruited a crew of fellow French expatriates through a newspaper ad and built a raft christened L’Égaré (The Lost One), but their first attempt was unsuccessful. Undaunted, Beaudout constructed and outfitted the L’Égaré II on a $5,000 budget. With two kittens aboard as mascots, the raft left Halifax on May 24, 1956, and, carried by the Gulf Stream, the crew and feline companions arrived safely in Falmouth, England, 88 days later. Barnett vividly recounts the frequently harrowing adventure filled with ferocious storms, several near-fatal encounters with vessels in shipping lanes, and a threatening shark. Bondarenko’s graphic interludes visually dramatize these moments.

A fascinating and thrilling real-life adventure story.