I read The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon, and loved it. (Click on the title to read my review of that book and scoll down a bit.) Also, years ago I read an article about the Halifax explosion, and I wanted to learn more about it. For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know I have a thing for shipwreck disasters. This one is unique because when the Mont-Blanc exploded, more than one square mile of land in and around Halifax was leveled.
What is this book about?
In December 1917, World War I raged in Europe. The unprecedented scale of the Great War created an insatiable hunger for soldiers, weapons, and other materials, many of which funneled through the Port of Halifax in Canada before sailing to Europe. In November 1917, Lenin told the Russian people their country would soon withdraw from the war. The Allies knew the Germans could then shift their troops and supplies from the Eastern Front to the Western Front. In an attempt to fend off the impending German onslaught on the Western Front, the Allies increased shipments of weapons and soldiers to Europe. In doing so, they began to employ substandard ships, like the Mont-Blanc, then precariously overload them with volatile explosives. In order to move shipments quickly, certain safeguards in Halifax Harbor were relaxed, creating a mentality that put speed and tonnage above safety. And for a while, they got away with it.
But on December 6, 1917, a combination of arrogance, lack of communication, and disregard for safety regulations resulted in the most destructive human-made explosion ever experienced, one that wouldn’t be surpassed until the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The explosion killed about 2,000 people, wounded another 9,000 people, and left nearly 25,000 people with either severely damaged homes or no homes at all.
Why did I like this book?
Bacon skillfully grapples with an overwhelming large-scale catastrophe that impacted about 40,000 people. The noise and aftershocks of the explosion were felt up to two hundred miles away. And while Bacon clearly describes the enormity of the disaster, the aspects that led to it, and the massive humanitarian relief efforts that followed, he also creates a narrative that conveys how it impacted individual people.
John Bacon is a wonderful writer. Evidenced by his careful research, it’s obvious that he cares a great deal about this historical tragedy and the people whose lives were forever impacted by it. Even though the explosion occurred over one hundred years ago, Bacon’s book delivers a cautionary tale — a timeless message against arrogance and overconfidence. He also reveals that in the face of an overwhelming calamity, people put aside their differences and pulled together in an uplifting story of humanity.
[Note: To read more about John U. Bacon and other nonfiction books written by him, including books about sports, click here.]
Haunted by my staggering To-Be-Read pile of books, I’ve been on a bigger reading kick than usual, so I’ve read lots of enjoyable books lately. As I finished each of the books that I review here, I would tell myself I should write a book review. But as soon as I had free time, I hooked up with another book from my T-B-R pile. So, I’m going to write some quick reviews of my recent reads.
Close to a Flame by Colleen Alles (Cornerstone Press, 2025)Colleen Alles is a Michigan writer, which is fitting since I read many of her short stories while visiting my mother in Petoskey, Michigan. Alles’s stories capture the ordinary lives of women as they move through life’s ups and downs. Her stories are often a nod to the importance, strength, and lasting endurance of friendships between women. Six of the stories in her collection follow two characters named Miriam and Jamie. I love how these M & J stories are interspersed throughout the collection. We meet M & J in Alles’s first story “Restoring Notre-Dame” while they are in college. They remain life-long friends. We are treated to their stories as they date, marry, have children, and move into middle age. In Alles’s final story “Christ at Heart’s Door,” Jamie has gone to stay with her aging mother for a week. Miriam is back home, but she’s only a phone call away. Alles’s six M & J stories create a wonderful story arc of their own. Besides the M & J stories, my other favorites were “Loggerhead,” “Cusping,” “Whisper Moment,” and “In Tandem.” These stories connected with me, three of them for their subtle humor and one for its undercurrent of horror. Even though I finished her book over a month ago, many of Alles’s stories have followed me around, especially “Christ at Heart’s Door.” Alles’s book was a well-deserved NIEA Finalist (National Indie Excellence Awards).
The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2025)John U. Bacon’s nonfiction book The Gales of November, released in 2025, coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Even though I was sixteen when the Fitzgerald sank, and I waited with thousands of people hoping there would be survivors, I’d never read a book about the Fitzgerald‘s sinking until I read The Gales of November. When it sank, I was living in Milwaukee, where the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, owners of the Fitz, is still located. Two years later I moved near Superior where the Fitz had taken on her last load of taconite a day before her sinking. In the early 1980s, I worked at President’s bar, mentioned several times in Bacon’s book. Over the years, I heard many stories about what might have happened to the Fitz. Some from my great-uncle, others from sailors who sailed the Great Lakes, including a couple of sailors who were on the Arthur M. Anderson the night the Fitz sunk. There were no survivors or captain’s logs to corroborate any of the stories. And while I’d read some articles about the Fitz over the years, I’d never read a book about its sinking. Then I read Cait Z’s blog review about Bacon’s book that stated,“This is excellent! What it isn’t is an exploitation of a disaster.” (Click on the quote to read Cait Z’s review.) I went to my local bookstore that day and bought the book. The Gales of November is everything Cait Z. said it would be. Readers learn about the Great Lakes, shipbuilding, the taconite industry, the life of sailors, the weather, a few other shipwrecks, and the families left behind after the Fitz‘s sinking. Bacon’s book is written with care and respect. I waited fifty years to read a book about the Edmund Fitzgerald and I’m glad I did. First, after fifty years and some underwater exploration, experts have more information about the Fitz‘s sinking. Second, I learned so much about the Great Lakes and the shipping industry. Finally, Bacon’s book — well written and well researched — is excellent. And everyone I’ve talked to who has read it agrees.
Montana Matrimonial News by Candace Simar(North Star Press, 2025)Candace Simar’s most recent novel is a group of connected stories about men and women who have come to live in the Dakota Territory as homesteaders in the 1880s. Simar paints a realistic picture of the harsh and lonely lives homesteaders lead as they farm their homesteads for the five years needed to claim the land as their own. Men and sometimes women advertise in the Montana Matrimonial News for a bride or groom. The novel starts with Digger and his brother George, who have been homesteading their claims for four long years, and they wonder if they have the fortitude to make it through their fifth year. They are desperately lonely and wish to marry. In other chapters we meet widowers and widows, some with children. We meet an unwed mother. We meet a pair of sisters who are homesteading separate claims. We meet two Civil War veterans who drink to quash the horrors of the war. And we meet Dr. Gamla, the thread who ties the stories together. She has a way of knowing who needs her medical services without being told. She offers cures for both the physically and emotionally wounded with her well-known catch phrase, “My cures work if you can stand them.” Candace Simar has written a richly detailed historical novel with vibrant, well-developed, distinctive characters who nearly walk off the pages. Her descriptive writing talents took me back to the 1880s in the Dakota Territory to the days of sod houses, prairie thunderstorms and blizzards, and waving oceans of prairie grasses. Her stories came to life in my head. [Note: I read most of Simar’s novel after receiving my COVID shot, which always makes me feel awful for a couple of days. Having her book to read was a soothing balm, making me forget about my discomfort.]
Beginnings: The Homeward Journey of Donovan Manypenny by Thomas D. Peacock (Holy Cow! Press, 2018) Donovan Manypenny, an Ojibwe from Red Cliff, Wisconsin, has had some tragedy and some joy in his life. He’s had some bad luck and some good luck. Left an orphan by his mother’s death, his grandparents have taken him into their home. They are kind and loving, but when Donovan is ten, first his grandmother dies, then his grandfather. Bad luck and good luck continue to follow Donovan for a brief time, with good luck and joy winning out. But Donovan ends up living over a thousand miles away from his Ojibwe people of Red Cliff. With the first sentence of his story, he tells us, “For over forty years I forgot I was native, Anishinaabe Ojibwe . . . .” In Massachusetts he has been content with his life as a teacher, happy in his marriage, and proud of his daughter. Then his daughter pleads with him to attend a Native American event combining Native storytelling and crafts. Something awakens in Donovan and he begins his homeward journey, taking his time along the way to visit places important to his Ojibwe people. Beautifully written, Thomas Peacock’s slender novel is a quiet, contemplative meditation on the meaning of belonging and family and of coming home to the place you were eventually meant to be.
Writing Near the Lake 