Fitzgerald's Storm: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald [Paperback]

Joseph MacInnis (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Thunder Bay Press (MI) (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1882376536
• ISBN-13: 978-1882376537
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,196,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an in depth look at a still controversial tragedy, June 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fitzgerald's Storm: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Paperback)

MacInnis gets right to the story,from the construction of this magnificent ship to its unlikely demise.An in depth look at the men and their families,and how this trgedy affected them and those around them.A Haunting tale of terror on the great lakes,a must read for shipwreck history buffs.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald: 29 Sailors Rest In Peace, March 17, 2001

By 

Bradley J Richards (Concord, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fitzgerald's Storm: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Paperback)

It was 7:30 PM on November 10, 1975. While we were watching Monday Night Football from the comfort of our homes, 29 sailors were fighting for their lives in a storm on Lake Superior. They were the crew of the ore-carrier S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald and they would eventually lose the battle. Dr. Joseph MacInnis led a 1994 expedition to the wreck and produced a television documentary on the subject. His book is the account of the wreck exploration and also a history of the ship. He tells the complete story from the ship's launching in 1957 to the sinking in 1975 and the search for answers in the 1990s. The primary question was how could a ship sink in the era of modern navigational technology and weather forecasting? This question and many others are examined throughout the book. The ship and crew have been immortalized in a 1976 song by Gordon Lightfoot. Dr. MacInnis uses his book to show the importance of learning from the disaster and keeping the memory alive.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars You can find a better book about the sinking of the Fitz, December 21, 2000

By 

J. Gifford (Las Vegas NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fitzgerald's Storm: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Paperback)

In November 1975 a storm on Lake Superior ravaged the Edmund Fitzgerald, an "unsinkable" laker, and took the life of more than two dozen men. MacInnis's book seems lost in this same storm -- it jumps here and there and gets caught up in the waves of controversy. Only thirty pages or so deal with the actual sinking. The rest of the book covers the construction of the ship, the aftermath of the sinking, the telling of the families, the investigation, the scabs who harvested the Fitz for cash, and, of course, Gordon Lightfoot's famous song. The book tries to be everything and ends up being little.

MacInnis writes in an overwrought style, mixing metaphors and making poor analogies. Still, if it wasn't for his purple prose, the book would have come in far short of its 126 pages.

MacInnis obviously has a vendetta against the poachers who salvaged the Fitz. He writes about them with fury, calling them heartless thieves, which they probably are, but he loses objectivity here. Much like the Edmund Fitzgerald on that stormy November night in 1975, MacInnis falls off course and grounds himself on a shoal of confusion.