…impressive, harrowing…Rogan writes viscerally about the desperate condition of the castaway, of what it is like to be "surrounded on four sides by walls of black water" or to be so thirsty your tongue swells to the size of "a dried and hairless mouse." But it's her portrait of Grace, who is by turns astute, conniving, comic and affecting, that drives the book. Like her literary forebear Becky Sharp, Grace wants a great deal from this life and feels justified in using whatever wiles might be necessary to secure her own happy ending.
—The New York Times Book Review
Readers still debate about the ethical decisions made by this debut novel's main character, but Charlotte Rogan's The Lifeboat continues to win readers with its intense, well-written recreation of a 1914 ocean liner disaster. A Summer 2012 Discover selection.
Set at the beginning of WWI, Rogan’s debut follows 22-year-old Grace Winter, a newlywed, newly minted heiress who survives a harrowing three weeks at sea following the sinking of her ocean liner and the disappearance of her husband, Henry. Safe at home in the U.S., Grace and two other survivors are put on trial for their actions aboard the under-built, overloaded lifeboat. At sea, as food and water ran out, and passengers realized that some among them would die, questions of sacrifice and duty arose. Rogan interweaves the trial with a harrowing day-by-day story of Grace’s time aboard the lifeboat, and circles around society’s ideas about what it means to be human, what responsibilities we have to each other, and whether we can be blamed for choices made in order to survive. Grace is a complex and calculating heroine, a middle-class girl who won her wealthy husband through smalltime subterfuge. Her actions on the boat are far from faultless, and her memory of them spotty. By refusing to judge her, Rogan leaves room for readers to decide for themselves. A complex and engrossing psychological drama. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick & Williams. (Apr. 10)
"[Grace Winter is] a gratifyingly complex character who narrates this dazzling psychological drama."
"Beautifully constructed first novel...Rogan crafts a harrowing, suspenseful tale of survival...Grace is a bold and compelling creation, a female protagonist whose humanity is revealed not through her vulnerability but by a cool pragmatism that could have made her repugnant in the hands of a less skilled, sympathetic writer...The Lifeboat raises these forever fascinating questions without moral posturing or sentimentality."
"A detailed and chokingly graphic novel...Rogan's vivid, aching detail is delivered through Grace's voice. But something else comes through as well, and this, rather than the story itself, is the novel's undermining and deeply unsettling core...The story [Grace] feeds us is mesmerizing, unquestionably believable for the most part, yet poisoned even in its most casual details. But we don't know just where the poison lodges...Rogan has done something more complex. The veil remains; only hints come through; enough to leave the reader - intrigued, yes, and also frustrated - in doubt somewhere short of certainty. And indeed the writer has performed a fictional equivalent to a phenomenon in sub-atomic physics: that observing a phenomenon can make it slip away and alter."
"A superb first book...a cunning narrator...A psychological horror story...Rogan paints a vivid picture first of grimly necessary heartlessness...The Lifeboat is a tremendously fast-paced read...in a tantalizing turn, Rogan leaves it up to the reader to decide who deserves to walk the proverbial plank, stirring a diabolically fun internal debate. Rogan is a novelist on her maiden voyage, but she steers The Lifeboat with a remarkably assured hand."
"Charlotte Rogan uses a deceptively simply narrative of shipwreck and survival to explore our all-too-human capacity for self-deception."
"The Lifeboat traps the reader in a story that is exciting at the literal level and brutally moving at the existential: I read it in one go."
"The Lifeboat is both an enthralling story of survival at sea and a novel that is satisfyingly concerned with the characters of its own storytelling...[The Lifeboat] bristles throughout with moral and historical dilemmas that arise from events in the text, and will provide argumentative fodder for book clubs...One hell of a debut."
"Riveting...the narrative stays focused mostly on [Grace's] experience in the boat, the tension deliciously building as the passengers grow hungrier, thirstier, and more desperate."
"The Lifeboat is a spellbinding and beautifully written novel, one that will keep readers turning pages late into the night. This is storytelling at its best, and I was completely absorbed from beginning to end."
"The Lifeboat is a richly rewarding novel, psychologically acute and morally complex. It can and should be read on many levels, but it is first and foremost a harrowing tale of survival. And what an irresistible tale it is; terrifying, intense, and, like the ocean in which the shipwrecked characters are cast adrift, profound."
"What a splendid book. . . . I can't imagine any reader who looks at the opening pages wanting to put the book down. . . . It's so refreshing to read a book that is ambitious and yet not tricksy, where the author seems to be in command of her material and really on top of her game. It's beautifully controlled and totally believable."
"Rogan has written an eerie, powerful debut you'll want to race through, but try to resist the urge. A slower read reveals a psychological depth that'll leave you thinking."
"In her assured debut, Rogan has written a layered and provocative tale of survival and impossible decisions. But her biggest achievement is the disarmingly demure yet fiercely shrewd Grace, a narrator as fascinating and unreliable as they come."
"Impressive, harrowing first novel...[Grace] narrates the book with panache - and a good dose of unreliability...Rogan writes viscerally about the desperate condition of the castaway...But it's her portrait of Grace, who is by turns astute, conniving, comic and affecting, that drive the book...As Rogan proves with this indelible character, there's a profound truth and even beauty in Grace's degree of self-loyalty."—Sarah Towers, New York Times Book Review
"In her assured debut, Rogan has written a layered and provocative tale of survival and impossible decisions. But her biggest achievement is the disarmingly demure yet fiercely shrewd Grace, a narrator as fascinating and unreliable as they come."—Stephan Lee, Entertainment Weekly
"Rogan has written an eerie, powerful debut you'll want to race through, but try to resist the urge. A slower read reveals a psychological depth that'll leave you thinking."—Helen Rogan, People
"[Grace Winter is] a gratifyingly complex character who narrates this dazzling psychological drama."—Wall Street Journal
"A superb first book...a cunning narrator...A psychological horror story...Rogan paints a vivid picture first of grimly necessary heartlessness...The Lifeboat is a tremendously fast-paced read...in a tantalizing turn, Rogan leaves it up to the reader to decide who deserves to walk the proverbial plank, stirring a diabolically fun internal debate. Rogan is a novelist on her maiden voyage, but she steers The Lifeboat with a remarkably assured hand."—Mary Pols, Time
"Rogan manages to distill this drama about what's right and wrong when the answer means life or death into a gripping, confident first novel...Other novels have examined the conscience and guilt of a survivor among the dead, but few tales are as thoughtful and compelling as this."—Christina Ianzito, Washington Post
"Beautifully constructed first novel...Rogan crafts a harrowing, suspenseful tale of survival...Grace is a bold and compelling creation, a female protagonist whose humanity is revealed not through her vulnerability but by a cool pragmatism that could have made her repugnant in the hands of a less skilled, sympathetic writer...The Lifeboat raises these forever fascinating questions without moral posturing or sentimentality."—Jocelyn McClurg, USA Today
"A detailed and chokingly graphic novel...Rogan's vivid, aching detail is delivered through Grace's voice. But something else comes through as well, and this, rather than the story itself, is the novel's undermining and deeply unsettling core...The story [Grace] feeds us is mesmerizing, unquestionably believable for the most part, yet poisoned even in its most casual details. But we don't know just where the poison lodges...Rogan has done something more complex. The veil remains; only hints come through; enough to leave the reader - intrigued, yes, and also frustrated - in doubt somewhere short of certainty. And indeed the writer has performed a fictional equivalent to a phenomenon in sub-atomic physics: that observing a phenomenon can make it slip away and alter."—Richard Eder, Boston Globe
"The Lifeboat is both an enthralling story of survival at sea and a novel that is satisfyingly concerned with the characters of its own storytelling...[The Lifeboat] bristles throughout with moral and historical dilemmas that arise from events in the text, and will provide argumentative fodder for book clubs...One hell of a debut."—Jonathan Raban, New York Review of Books
"Riveting...the narrative stays focused mostly on [Grace's] experience in the boat, the tension deliciously building as the passengers grow hungrier, thirstier, and more desperate."—Karen Holt, O, the Oprah Magazine
"Charlotte Rogan uses a deceptively simply narrative of shipwreck and survival to explore our all-too-human capacity for self-deception."—J. M. Coetzee
"The Lifeboat traps the reader in a story that is exciting at the literal level and brutally moving at the existential: I read it in one go."—Emma Donoghue, author of Room
"What a splendid book. . . . I can't imagine any reader who looks at the opening pages wanting to put the book down. . . . It's so refreshing to read a book that is ambitious and yet not tricksy, where the author seems to be in command of her material and really on top of her game. It's beautifully controlled and totally believable."—Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall
"The Lifeboat is a spellbinding and beautifully written novel, one that will keep readers turning pages late into the night. This is storytelling at its best, and I was completely absorbed from beginning to end."—Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried, In the Lake of the Woods, July, July
"The Lifeboat is a richly rewarding novel, psychologically acute and morally complex. It can and should be read on many levels, but it is first and foremost a harrowing tale of survival. And what an irresistible tale it is; terrifying, intense, and, like the ocean in which the shipwrecked characters are cast adrift, profound."—Valerie Martin, author of Property and The Confessions of Edward Day
First-time novelist Rogan's architectural background shows in the precision with which she structures the edifice of moral ambiguity surrounding a young woman's survival during three weeks in a crowded lifeboat adrift in the Atlantic in 1914. The novel begins with Grace back on American soil, on trial for her actions on the boat. Two other female survivors who are also charged, Hannah and Mrs. Grant, plead self-defense. Grace, guided by her lawyer Mr. Reichmann, who has had her write down her day-by-day account of events, pleads not guilty. Rogan leaves it up to the reader to decide how reliable a narrator Grace may be. Newly impoverished after her father's financial ruin and subsequent suicide, New Yorker Grace set her sites on the wealthy young financier Henry Winter and soon won him, never mind that he was already engaged. They sailed together, pretending to be married, to London, where he had business and they legally wed before boarding Empress Alexandra (named for the soon-to-be-assassinated Tsarina) to return home. When an unexplained explosion rocks the ship, Henry gallantly places her, perhaps with a bribe, into a lifeboat already packed to over-capacity. She never sees him again. An Empress crewmember, Mr. Hardie, quickly takes charge of the passengers, distributing the limited rations and organizing work assignments with godlike authority. As hope for quick salvation dims, passengers fall into numb lethargy. Some go mad. There are natural deaths and (reluctantly) voluntary sacrificial drownings. Dissention grows. Mr. Hardie's nemesis is the sternly maternal Mrs. Grant and feminist Hannah, who plant suspicions about his motives and competence. Grace avoids taking sides but eventually helps the other women literally overthrow him into the sea. Is she acting out of frail weakness, numbed by her ordeal, or are her survival instincts more coldblooded? Even she may not be sure; much of her conversation circles morality and religion. The lifeboat becomes a compelling, if almost overly crafted, microcosm of a dangerous larger world in which only the strong survive.
