Eric Jay Dolin’s “The Wreck of the Mentor” tells the gripping saga of the American whaleship wrecked in 1832 on a remote reef in the western Pacific.
With supplies dwindling, the eleven surviving crewmen face not only the miseries of shipwreck in unfamiliar territory but also the profound uncertainty of contact with the local indigenous people.
The book reconstructs the Mentor’s doomed voyage, the years of perilous captivity, and the delicate negotiations and fraught naval rescue mission that followed.
