I imagine that most people who read The Wager will do so having already read David’s last work, Killers of the Flower Moon. One of the most acclaimed non-fiction books in recent memory, Killers excavated a largely forgotten story and not only brought it back into the light but brought it to life with vivid prose and unforgettable real-life characters.
In The Wager, Grann tries to do the same thing but with a much different story. Whereas Killers of the Flower Moon covered events in the 20th Century United States, The Wager is about a warship traveling from England to South America in the 1740s. Sent as part of a fleet of ships tasked with capturing a treasure-laden Spanish galleon, The Wager’s journey was plagued with difficulties at every stage of the trip. Faced with a shortage of willing sailors, the British Navy resorted to using press-gangs to compel men onto the boat. Diseases spread like wildfire on board, especially scurvy. And of course, the holy trinity mentioned right in Grann’s subtitle: Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder.
I had some reservations heading into The Wager. Outside of really enjoying the film Master and Commander, I’m not normally keen on naval stories, and I’m largely unfamiliar with the era of English history, though the absurdly lyrical “War of Jenkins’s Ear” was a phrase I’d heard before. I was really only reading The Wager because of the goodwill Grann had earned with Killers of the Flower Moon. (I have also read The Lost City of Z, which I would say I appreciated but did not love.)
Perhaps because of my hesitancy, the early stages of The Wager were a bit of a slog for me. However, the set-up certainly pays off after the shipwreck, when the surviving men are stranded on a seemingly deserted island with very little food and plenty of resentments. Grann does a phenomenal job weaving the historical records into a nearly day-by-day account of life on the island. He delineates the splitting of the group into factions and the plots that ensure expertly. Through careful groundwork, Grann had introduced several main characters among the shipmates, like Captain David Cheap, promoted mid-sailing and desperate to prove himself worthy of the tile. His main antagonist is a gunner named John Bulkeley, who displays natural leadership qualities far above his station within the island’s largely classless society. Bulkeley blames Cheap for the shipwreck itself, and cautiously builds a coalition to challenge’s Cheap’s authority over the men. Torn between them are good and well-meaning sailors like midshipman John Byron, grandfather of the famous poet. Byron is a particularly compelling character in Grann’s hands. Though inexperienced and unworldly, he struggles to do the right thing and frets as life on the island devolves into chaos.
There are some incredible twists and turns in the tale of The Wager and the men who sailed aboard her, but those are for the reader to discover and enjoy. While perhaps nothing Grann will write could match the impact of Killers of the Flower Moon, The Wager is a worthy follow-up and a darn good sea-story.
