Book- Under the Eye of the Storm

Under the Eye of the Storm is another impressive book by John Hersey. He never writes the same thing, and rarely in the same style, but he always writes with purpose. While not always stylish, it is careful, precise writing...I have a feeling he chooses each word and each sentence with care, and then builds a whole paragraph with intent.

Under the Eye of the Storm is a a psychological story, about two couples in a sailboat, intending to spend a short vacation together on the water, cruising the New England Atlantic. Dr. Tom Medlar owns the boat, Harmony, and he loves her, loves the routine of keeping her ship shape, pours his soul into her upkeep, maybe to the detriment of his wife Audrey.

Joining them are Flicker and Dot Hamden, who Tom does not really like too much for long periods. But away on Harmony they go, with initial tensions easing as the journey begins.

We see things from Tom's eyes, knowing his feelings about what is going on on Harmony, and the while the tensions of the other three continue to ease, Tom's increases as he suspects an affair between Audrey and Flicker. And then the storm hits. A hurricane that was supposed to go out to sea comes towards the coast.

They tie up in a good place in a harbor, prepared to ride it out, but the storm's violence causes a fishing shack on shore to get tangled in the anchor line and they have to cut loose or go under, and they must now ride out the storm in open water.

But this could be a story about a wagon crosses the prairie in the past or a spaceship in deep space...it is more about how these people act in a crisis, and how they view things during duress, in relative isolation, with only each other to react to. It is also somewhat existential, because it really asks: "If I perceive it such, does that make it so, or can there be other truths?"

Hersey knows sailing, no doubt, and you feel he is accurate in every term he uses, but he is even more accurate in how he describes these four people, how is shows their psychological states. None of the characters are completely noble, nor are any really bad people, they are real, with faults common to many of us. But caught in the maelstrom will they continue to be who they were, or will they sense and see that they can have a new perception?

This is another excellent John Hersey book.