Book Club – Gales of November

The group meets for an informal conversation about the book rather than a lecture. The book, The Gales of November, tells the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Great Lakes freighter that sank on Lake Superior in 1975 with 29 men aboard. Bacon draws on more than 100 interviews with families, friends and former crewmates. The Koller Library is a community library on Highway 51, supported by local residents and donations.

Bacon writes the disaster as a narrative history, and much of its weight falls on the people left behind: the wives, sons and daughters of the crew. The book also explains the shipping economy the Fitzgerald served, which is easy to miss if you only know the ship from the Gordon Lightfoot ballad. A small group talking it over in a library is a good way to hear what readers make of it.