Good stuff. ( )

These are unsettling stories, some featuring the disenfranchised, some historical in nature (or both), and some about people with comfortable lives, at least until bad things happen to them. Ethan Rutherford also likes to tell nautical tales where disaster is pre-ordained.

In the title story a demoralized yet eager Confederate States of America submarine crew attempts to strike a blow for the confederacy during a war that is all but lost. ”We sat back, dumfounded, and familiarized ourselves with new definitions of inadequacy.”

“Camp Winnesaka” captures the black humor of George Saunders in a summer camp gone amok. “People – cynics – will tell you facts are essential. But facts can be misleading.”
In the uncomfortable “John, For Christmas” a manipulative adult son makes his parent’s life one of constant unease.

In “A Mugging” the humiliation of the act drives a wedge between an otherwise solid couple. “Dirwhals!” is the narrative of a futuristic whale-hunting expedition, complete with radical environmentalists, in a world where the Gulf of Mexico is now a desert and steel shipper-tanks troll the dry sand hunting Dirwhals as a source of energy. ( )