Boon Island

Andrew Vietze is the former managing editor of Down East: The Magazine of Maine and has written for a wide array of print and online publications. He is the award-winning author of six previous books. Stephen Erickson holds an MA in American history from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and has completed PhD course work in Early American History at the College of William and Mary.

"With Boon Island: A True Story of Mutiny, Shipwreck, and Cannibalism, one of the most brutal survival stories in American history is finally—and fully—told in all its fascinating, gruesome infamy. Equal parts thriller, survival epic, horrifying history, and cautionary tale, if ever there was a story tailor-made for Hollywood, it is this. Masterfully written, Boon Island is that rare creature, a lively scholarly account and a gripping page-turner, that amply rewards history buffs and thrill seekers alike."—Matthew P. Mayo, author of Bootleggers, Lobstermen & Lumberjacks: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of Hardscrabble New England"Although the shipwreck off the Maine coast of the Nottingham Galley took place in 1710, the authors—Vietze (Becoming Teddy Roosevelt) is former managing editor of Down East magazine, Erickson has a master's in American history—make it as real as today's news, drawing on several accounts by the captain, rebuttals by crew members, and even fiction stemming from the drama. Capt. John Deane portrayed himself as a great hero after his rescue from minuscule Boon Island, where his ship ran aground in the freezing winter. The first mate and other veteran sailors painted him as a "liar and a coward." The disaster itself gave rise to fascinating information about hypothermia, starvation, and cannibalism (the starving crew consumed the flesh of the ship's dead carpenter). The writers follow the men from the beginning of their journey, its strange perambulations, and the disaster, then through the rescue, the solace the crew received in Maine, and the continuation of their lives back home in England. Allegations of insurance fraud and the possibility that the English ship, for financial gain at an earlier date, could have made an agreement to be captured by French privateers create a maritime whodunit rife with twists and turns and high drama."--Publishers Weekly