Hester Rumberg

Brief Description: In 1993, Judith and Michael Sleavin and their two children, Ben and Annie, set out to live their dream: to sail around the world. But one night, a freighter off the coast of New Zealand altered its course by a mere ten degrees and caused catastrophic damage to the Sleavin’s sailboat. With her son Ben immediately lost, Judith, Michael and Annie struggled to survive through the night. Only Judith made it—surviving 44 hours in the water, with a back broken in several places and paralyzed below the waist. With little to live for, Judith nevertheless recovered, though she suffered one of the worst cases of post-traumatic stress syndrome ever documented. Driven by her need to see justice and help ensure that the accident that killed her family wouldn’t happen again, Judith struggled to create a life for herself despite often feeling that she had nothing to live for.

My Thoughts: This is a difficult review to write as I had to separate out the story of what happened to the Sleavins and the book itself. What happened to the Sleavin family is heart-breaking, chilling and oddly compelling. I can’t even imagine the pain and fear that Judith Sleavin must have experienced in those 44 hours until she was saved. Losing your family right before your eyes in such traumatic circumstances would make it difficult to go on. The book certainly doesn’t sugarcoat Judith’s recovery, and it seems that she is still broken in many ways. The fact that Judith chose not to share her story until years afterward made me admire her for not capitalizing on the tragedy of her family. Her motivations for sharing her story seem honest and true. In fact, she chose her close friend Dr. Hester Rumberg to tell her story, a decision that I’m sure allowed her to open up about her tragedy with less stress.

Although Rumberg does her best to tell the Sleavin’s story as objectively as possible, therein lies the problem with the book: the narration is just too clinical and objective to be affecting. The story never fully came alive for me, and I think this was due to the nature of the writing. Although the writing is competent and workmanlike, it just doesn’t have the emotional impact that you would expect from a story like this. The fact that I didn’t shed a tear surprised me. This is a real tragedy, and yet I felt oddly unaffected while reading. I would have loved to see someone like Jon Krakauer or Sebastian Junger tell this story instead. Both of those writers are masters at telling nonfiction stories that make the story fully come alive while still maintaining a journalistic distance. Sadly, this book just didn’t have the emotional “oomph” it should have had …though I certainly don’t mean to take away anything from Judith Sleavin’s story itself.… (mehr)

What an amazing story, well told. Those of you who like to read tales of survival must add this to your list, not only for what this woman went through in the two days after her sailboat was sunk in a collision with a large ship, but in the succeeding years in learning to live with her grief at the loss of her husband, son and daughter in the accident.
There's also interesting stuff in here about the life style of people who sail around the world, navigating, investigation of sea accidents.
I found the book fascinating from several view points and highly recommend it.… (mehr)