Reviews

"A fascinating look into the machinations of Restoration France revolving around the horrific wreck of an Africa-bound ship and the famed painting it inspired that stirred all of Europe. The spellbinding characters and lucid writing make this a genuine page-turner." -- Winston F. Groom

"Hard to put down, this truly horrendous tale plumbs the depths of brutality and incompetence, as well as touching the bounds of human survival. The saga of Gericault's Medusa also illuminates vividly a little-known period of French history--those muddy years that followed the collapse of Waterloo." -- Alistair Horne

"With powerful prose and riveting detail, Jonathan Miles has taken the story behind one of the world's most famous paintings and woven it into a timeless tale of betrayal and survival." -- Candice Millard

In June 1816 French frigate Medusa ran aground on a sandbar off the African coast. What followed-gross incompetence, murder and cannibalism-shocked European society and pushed the fragile, recently restored French monarchy to the brink. From the swirl of characters boiling around the story-admirals, ministers and kings-Miles (David Jones: The Maker Unmade) anchors his tale on Medusa survivor Alexandre Correard and painter Theodore Gericault. After surviving the wreck and subsequently drifting on a raft on which 133 of 147 died, Correard, an engineer fleeing the growing chaos in post-Napoleonic France, wrote a bestselling account of the tragedy and agitated for the monarchy's end. Revealed in the ensuing controversy was France's ongoing participation in the illegal trade of African slaves. With such great elements in place (flesh eating, palace intrigue and illicit love) this yarn has much promise. Unfortunately, while the story roars along with its own inherent momentum, Miles's prose is sometimes awkward ("Their union was obviously intense and, as with all true love, supremely precious. Catastrophically, it was to prove short-lived"). Nevertheless, the story of the wreck of the Medusa and the churning cultural machinations around it does make for a compelling read. (July) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

"A fascinating look into the machinations of Restoration France revolving around the horrific wreck of an Africa-bound ship and the famed painting it inspired that stirred all of Europe. The spellbinding characters and lucid writing make this a genuine page-turner." -- Winston F. Groom
"Hard to put down, this truly horrendous tale plumbs the depths of brutality and incompetence, as well as touching the bounds of human survival. The saga of Gericault's Medusa also illuminates vividly a little-known period of French history--those muddy years that followed the collapse of Waterloo." -- Alistair Horne
"With powerful prose and riveting detail, Jonathan Miles has taken the story behind one of the world's most famous paintings and woven it into a timeless tale of betrayal and survival." -- Candice Millard