A story of a trip on a small ship during WWII on the the Bering sea from an island to another. There are three reluctant passengers on board. Weather reports are decent but the planes are not flying. It is storm season, so the forecasts are not to be trusted fully, and of course the storm - locally williwaw - comes. The skipper does his thing, with a little luck, and the ship survives. Only one man is lost. But is it an accident or a killing? Or something in between.

Straightforward writing and narration. Short sentences, all said, nothing much left unsaid, but still in a way, this is somehow a fascinating account of something otherwise unknown to me. ( )

To think that this was Vidal's first book, and at such a young age... just amazing. I was hooked from the get-go and thoroughly enjoyed every moment. This was one of the earliest WWII stories published, and it was definitely deserving. The narration style feels very "run of the mill," as in, this is just what the life of a sailor entails nothing noteworthy here, sort of thing. The fact that it's about a massive freak storm that could easily have wound up in the sinking of the ship, among other things, only makes the style that much more interesting. It works impeccably well, and only serves to confirm that Vidal was always destined to be the master writer he became! ( )

Nineteen years.

Nineteen years only is a precocious Gore Vidal when he writes his first book, a captivating sea yarn titled Williwaw.

In this story, we closely follow the crew and passengers of a small US Army supply ship that navigates between the different ports of the Aleutian islands. There is not much fighting going on, ( the Japanese are not aiming North - East ), but there is another ennemy, as dangerous : the dreadful weather of the high North and the terrifying Williwaws, sudden storms, characterized by their extreme violence and short time-span.

Vidal was inspired by his own experiences and the stories he heard when he was a young sailor on a similar boat in similar seas. It is a gripping tale of survival, with character development along the way, but it deals also with the same kind of moral issues as in Mailer's "Naked and the dead".

The narrative gets it's realism from the conversations and interactions of a handful of people : The taciturn, but very experienced skipper, the mates, the chief and a few passengers, officers and a chaplain, who have embarked for a short passage. There are but a few descriptions of the environment and the ship.

It is, however, the unconventional treatment of the different issues ( there is not only the storm ) that set this work apart. Unconventional in the sense that every writer of an "airport - bestseller" would construct the narrative so that the dramatic highlights would develop in a parallel way and climax together. Not so with Vidal who keeps things apart and by this unconventional plot infringes on the comfort of the modern reader "who has seen it all before". The stress in these pages is not build up page by page, it is there constantly, at least when the boat is out at sea, and the reader can only relax each time the ship enters a harbour or drops anchor in a protective bay.

The signs of something bad happening - or not - are numerous and the reader is as unsure as what might happen as the experienced skipper Evans, who looks constantly at the sky, the sea, the birds, the barometer and his detailed maps of the Aleutian islands.

Great story, great writing... ( )

A novel about a killing, set on a ship in the Aleutians campaign is a good evening's entertainment. Some fine writing. ( )

St. Barts 2013 #5 - Loved this book. Clear human characters, distinct Aleutian war setting with all the chills accompanying, an exciting sea journey with horrible unexpected weather with disaster looming, all told in a very believable style that was hard to put down. A quick read as welI. I highly recommend if these features in a book sound appealing! ( )