May 14, 2026 @  2 pm Selection for the Weston Public Library Non-Fiction Reading Group.

On November 10, 1975, during one of the fiercest storms ever to hit the Great Lakes, the massive freighter Edmund Fitzgerald vanished beneath the waves of Lake Superior, taking all twenty-nine crew members with her.  You may recall the Gordon Lightfoot popular 1975 song The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.

“An absorbing Perfect Storm-esque literary narrative.”― Christopher Borelli, Chicago Tribune

“John Bacon has done it again! This is another riveting narrative that puts facts on a still mesmerizing legend. But this is more than getting the details right. Bacon has distilled the essence of the story and rendered a huge monument to those lost and a great gift to the rest of us.”― Ken Burns, filmmaker

“An exciting and heartbreaking narrative that relies heavily on interviews with relatives and friends of the 29 lost Edmund Fitzgerald crew members…. A lifelong Michigander, Bacon beautifully describes the gritty world of the Iron Range ore-mining districts and the Great Lakes ship­ping industry. His writing is most absorbing when he recreates the lives of the 29 victims, from the admired captain to the newest rookie. But the tour de force is his gripping hour-by-hour narrative of the wreck, enriched by inter­views with men who had served previously on the Fitzgerald – or were on other ships in the same horrendous storm…. A definitive accounting that may be the last book that can draw on direct contemporary observations of this colossal tragedy.”― Bookpage, starred review

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