James Gould Cozzens's short novel is an excellent depiction of a slow-motion disaster. The ship is listing slightly as it leaves port, something that everyone notices, but there is no urgency to address the issue and some of the characters engage in the kind of happy talk that assumes that problems will fix themselves. By the time disaster is imminent, passengers are still being told that everything will be fine. Faith in technology (engines, pumps, radio) and in authority (a deathly ill captain) combine in a fatal cocktail. Cozzens's prose is a little too purple for my taste, and his use of the semicolon exceeds everyone I've ever read, but this remains a startling little tale.
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