Former mariner and award-winning author George Foy will share from his new book, Run the Storm: A Savage Hurricane, a Brave Crew, and the Wreck of the SS El Faro, at the Blue Hill Public Library on Thursday, June 21st at 7:00 PM.
On October 1, 2015, the SS El Faro, a massive American cargo ship that made regular runs between Florida and Puerto Rico, disappeared in Hurricane Joaquin with 5 alumni of the Maine Maritime Academy aboard. It was the greatest seagoing US merchant marine shipping disaster since World War II. The ship had a seasoned crew, state-of-the-art navigation equipment, and advance warning of the storm. How, in this day and age, could something like this happen? The answer is that a ship as large as the El Faro doesn’t vanish for just one reason; it vanishes because many factors intersect.
George Michelsen Foy is the author of Finding North: How Navigation Makes Us Human and Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute Silence, as well as twelve novels. He is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction and his articles, reviews, and stories have been published by Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Harper’s, The New York Times, and Men’s Journal, among others. A former officer on British coastal freighters, he teaches creative writing at NYU, holds a US Coast Guard coastal captain’s license, and divides his time between Cape Cod and New York.
Books will be available for sale and signing. This event is sponsored by the library and Blue Hill Books, there is no charge, and everyone is welcome. For more information, call the library at 374-5515.
