Atria Books Shadow of the Titanic: The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived

Bien documenté et présenté, j'ai eu du plaisir à lire et j'ai compris que le choc post-traumatique dure toute la vie.

I have read countless books about the TITANIC so I was excited about the "other story" of the Titanic. What became of the survivors? Most books end with the sinking and subsequent US and British hearings into the tragedy. The survivors then become a forgotten sideline to history...the exception being the very last handful of survivors who were babies or young children during the sinking and became the final tangible link to the tragedy. SHADOW OF THE TITANTIC was totally engrossing. Here are many of the survivors I remembered from other books but now we see what became of their lives. No one who survived the sinking went on to live a "normal" life. The dreaful memories of the sinking and loss of life stayed with survivors for the rest of their lives. They lost parents, husbands, friends and loved ones. Life could never be the same for any of them. It was amazing to read about several survivors who were so tormented by the disaster that they committed suicide...some within a few years of their survival while others suffered for decades before ending their lives. I had always wondered what happened to teenager Madeline Astor. Her marriage to a much older John Jacob Astor scandalized high society. They went abroad to escape the gossip. Their return home on the Titanic met with disaster and the pregnant Madeline was not a teenaged millionaire widow. Oddly, Astor's will stipulated that she would lose her inheritance if she remarried..and yes, she did and more than once. Here are fascinating stories into the lives and misadventures of the survivors. Despite the valor of "Women and Children First", we learn that in many cases it was "Women and Children ONLY". Men were refused spots with their wives and children as lifeboats were lowered with many seats available. If a first-class male passenger did find a seat on a lifeboat, he was often considered a coward and forever scorned by high society. It seemed the duty of Edwardian gentlemen to go down with the ship no matter what. We also hear again about women who refused to turn back half-empty lifeboats to try to rescue more people. Where is the valor there? There is also Dorothy Gibson, a popular silent film actress, who survived the ship and starred in the first film version of the Titanic a month after the sinking. Her life took a strange journey that even involved a stay in a concentration camp in Italy during WWII. We learn how the lives of children too young to remember the sinking were forever affected by being a "survivor". The subject of the Titanic was often taboo in many survivor households. SHADOW OF THE TITANIC is an engrossing story and a must read for anyone fascinated by this doomed luxury liner. Finally, here is a chance to read about the other side of the story.

Purtroppo è in lingua inglese..

Well-written, well-researched book. Now we know what the survivors feel or think even many years after the tragedy. Some of them could never become normal. And that is understandable. It is unfortunate that the some men who survived, were blamed for their survival. Anyway, that is history now. The book brings to light many unknown facts and I thank the author for that.

Great book nice to hear how the disaster affected the survivors. Highly reccomend this book for those who are still captivated by the Titanic sinking.