Is The Gales of November Worth Reading?
The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Ada’s Score
Bacon reconstructs the 1975 loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Great Lakes freighter that vanished in a Lake Superior storm with all twenty-nine hands. The reporting is meticulous on the ship, the crew, and the meteorology, and the human portraits give the disaster weight beyond its folklore. Where it strains is the pacing: Bacon front-loads so much marine and biographical detail that the catastrophe itself arrives almost as relief rather than climax. A solid maritime history that occasionally mistakes thoroughness for momentum.
“Bacon does the research and the grief justice. The drag is structural — too much rigging and tonnage before the storm finally takes over.”
Ada Brief
AI reading intelligence“Bacon does the research and the grief justice. The drag is structural — too much rigging and tonnage before the storm finally takes over.”
Ada’s reservations
The reporting is honest and the crew portraits land, but Bacon buries the catastrophe under technical and biographical padding. Pacing-impatient history readers will lose the thread before the storm; the reputation is earned, not exceeded.
Ada’s score reflects both strengths and reservations.
Book Details
- Publisher
- Liveright Publishing / W. W. Norton
- Pages
- 467
- Language
- English
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Ada’s Score
4
Ada’s editorial score — not an aggregate of reader reviews.
Common Questions About The Gales of November
- Is The Gales of November worth reading?
- Bacon does the research and the grief justice. The drag is structural — too much rigging and tonnage before the storm finally takes over. Ada rates it 4.0 out of 5.
- What are the main weaknesses of The Gales of November?
- The reporting is honest and the crew portraits land, but Bacon buries the catastrophe under technical and biographical padding. Pacing-impatient history readers will lose the thread before the storm; the reputation is earned, not exceeded.
- How many pages is The Gales of November?
- The Gales of November is 467 pages long — around 8–9 hours at an average reading pace.
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