A well written book that manages to be capture the emotions of the night, but staying true to what happened (per the evidence). The Author has done a lot of research in this, citing various reports, from official reports put out by Coast Card, to individual witnesses. He's makes sure to note where there are inconsistencies, as well as what certain. What it amounts to is, that no one actually knows why the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. Everyone can agree its due to the storm, but what happened- there are theories, but due to no survivors, and the boat being torn up as it went down, its just not possible.

As for the emotional impact, with not survivors, the author talks about other boat wrecks, as well what potentially the crew went through. Its emotional and hard to read. As someone who is works in an office, not really understanding the dangerous work that runs our world, its a bit eye opening. ( )

Oh, my... what a book... what research... what a sad story... what a tribute to the crew... what controversy... this book has it all! Wonderful read!

My husband and I recently spent two weeks traveling along the Superior coastline of the Upper Peninsula, visiting Whitefish Point and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum along the way. I could hard wait to read this book and it did not disappoint. ( )

I picked this book up at a library sale. It was musty (like "old hall in Detroit (where) they prayed"?) and reading the book was a challenge for that reason - I am very allergic and my nose actually started to bleed on occasion, and I had a headache till I was done, though I only read it a little at a time. The story - and the song by Gordon Lightfoot - have always held my imagination, and that, in part, is why the book gets only two stars: such an epic deserves only the best treatment, and this book isn't it. Perhaps the disappointment I feel is simply the emptiness one feels in the face of such a disaster, especially when nothing definitive can be known about why the ship went down. Perhaps I was looking for more technical information and more maps that the one, rather crude, map at the beginning of this book. But regardless, the anticipation of reading this book was not matched by the book itself. Perhaps no book can do the story justice. Even Lightfoot's song, as good as it is, is in its own ways disappointing. That is the way it is, I guess, when something slips out of history into legend. ( )