Taking on the Titanic

It is the gold standard of tragedies. For more than 110 years, the sinking of the RMS Titanic has inspired books, movies, and conspiracy theories and captured the public's imagination. Like Pearl Harbor, September 11, and the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, it is a fountain of intrigue that never runs dry.

I kept that in mind this week as I turned my attention to an event that will play a small but vital part in Annie's Apple, my current work in progress and the second book in the Second Chance triology.

As a longtime Titanic fan, I am very familiar with the big picture. I've read the books, seen the movies, and perused numerous papers and articles. I visited the traveling artifact exhibition when it made stops in Seattle (2001) and Idaho Falls (2009). I have even paid lip service to Titanic trivia, such as the mind-numbing debate over whether Jack and Rose could have both fit on the floating door. (For those who care, Time magazine covered it all in 2019.)

Even so, I'm still learning things. While researching the Titanic, I learned that a coal fire below deck burned for days while the ship was at sea. I also enhanced my knowledge of the Titanic-Olympic conspiracy, communications problems, and the collection of survivors and victims. I found that even a student of history can pick up a few things about a widely reported historical event.

Like many, perhaps, I was moved most by stories of the disaster's final victims. On May 13, 1912, crew members from the RMS Oceanic pulled three corpses from a lifeboat they found drifting in the ocean nearly a month after the sinking. A few weeks later, crewmen from the steamship Algerine collected James McGrady, an Irish saloon steward, and buried him in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The sinking, of course, was more than a disaster. It was a pivotal moment in history, a moment where the Gilded Age met the Industrial Age and pride and excess collided with science and math.

I plan to write my Titanic chapters in February. In the meantime, I will reread Walter Lord's A Night to Remember, scan more New York Times articles, and even watch Jack and Rose run around a doomed liner one more time. I figure it's the least I can do to get a better understanding of a tragic event that still shocks and inspires.

Photo: The last lifeboat of survivors reaches the rescue ship Carpathia. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.