The unimaginable horror of total nuclear war has been let loose upon the world. Miraculously, a single ship—the guided missile destroyer Nathan James—has survived the nightmare of destruction. This astonishing, superbly written novel is the story of that ship, the 152 men and 32 women aboard her, their search for survival—and the fate of mankind.
William Brinkley brilliantly takes the grand themes of seafaring fiction—the mysterious sway of the sea over human nature, the tensions and bonds of the shipboard community, the moral crisis of war at sea—and launches them into the uncharted waters of the post holocaust world. The captain of the Nathan James narrates the electrifying story of his crew’s voyage through the hell of nuclear winter, past the blighted shores of Europe and Africa, their survival of mutiny and their puzzling encounter with a Russian submarine.
But it is when the ship makes land on an uncontaminated paradise island that the captain confronts the most urgent and difficult question: How can the men and greatly outnumbered women of his crew find a way to perpetuate the human race?
“Brinkley’s tale has humanity, thoughtfulness and one inspired complication: women.” Donald Morrison, Time
