The very first post I made on this site talked about how, minus school assignments, I never read leisurely until I came across David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon in 2019. With the recent hype around the movie adaptation, I searched Grann’s name online to find out he published a new book in 2023.
Part of me is unsure how I didn’t hear about The Wager until over a year after it was initially published, but the other part of me has no idea how I would’ve otherwise known. That being said, it took roughly zero convincing for me to purchase Grann’s (somewhat) new book The Wager after reading the synopsis.
I initially made it through the first hundred or so pages feeling slightly disappointed. Killers of the Flower Moon had been a page-turner the entire time but the start of The Wager read more like a history book. That being said, as I proceeded through the latter half of the book, my opinion entirely reversed.
Part of what makes Grann such a special author is not just his ability to write, but his ability to find exceptionally unique stories. In both books, Grann discovered and narrated stories that are entirely real but so ludicrous in some dimensions that parts read like fiction.
The other unique ability Grann has is sifting through large volumes of information and boiling complex narratives down into several hundred pages. There is a boatload of information regarding the narrative presented in The Wager, but it is riddled with bias, subjectivity, and even blatant lies. Grann’s ability to sift through conflicting accounts of the same story to determine the truth is impressive and helps make this book even more entertaining.
The structure of this narrative followed the normal flow of context, story, and aftermath; as hinted in the start of my review, The Wager seemed to be a bit heavy on the context side and I would’ve liked to have seen more information on the aftermath part. Especially since the number of survivors that made it back to the mainland was so abundant, I was more curious to see how these people who went through some of the most horrific years spent the remainder of their lives and how the shipwreck affected them personally. We got to hear high-level updates for some of the most prominent characters, but even those felt short relative to how critical each of them was in the sections prior.
The nature of this story is certainly absurd: a shipwreck where the surviving group faces internal mutiny, separates and then several independent groups manage to make it back home throughout the next few years. There is so much to analyze regarding the nature of the narrative itself, the human condition, and our behavioral tendencies. But I appreciated that Grann didn’t try to include much of that in this book. I thought it was shocking how much the castaways wanted to act correctly out of fear of being judged if they were to make it back home despite that being the least likely outcome; that same fear slowed down their internal conflict resolution processes and could have saved more lives if lessened.
The Wager was nothing short of expectation and was a perfect follow-up to Killers of the Flower Moon. There’s so much more I could say about this narrative but will save the rambling for when I’m convincing my friends to read this.
Rating: 5/5