Skeletons on the Zahara (King)

Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival
Dean King, 2004
Little, Brown & Co.
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316159357

Summary
Everywhere hailed as a masterpiece of historical adventure, this enthralling narrative recounts the experiences of twelve American sailors who were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa in 1815, captured by desert nomads, sold into slavery, and subjected to a hellish two-month journey through the bone-dry heart of the Sahara.

The ordeal of these men—who found themselves tested by barbarism, murder, starvation, death, dehydration, and hostile tribes that roamed the desert on camelback—is made indelibly vivid in this gripping account of courage, brotherhood, and survival. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Richmond, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; M.A., New
   York University
• Currently—lives in Richmond, Virginia

Dean King is the author of numerous books, including Unbound: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival (2010), and the highly acclaimed biography Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed. King has also written for many publications, including Men's Journal, Esquire, Outside, New York magazine, and the New York Times. He lives in Richmond, Virginia. (From the pubisher and Wikipedia.)

More
The award winning author of ten books and dozens of stories in national magazines, Dean King has a deep and abiding passion for historical and adventure narratives. His earliest works—A Sea of Words; Harbors and High Seas; and Every Man Will Do His Duty—are companion books to Patrick O'Brian's monumental Aubry-Maturin novel series and are the first and most popular companion books to the 20-novel series.

King wrote a groundbreaking biography of O'Brian, published just three month's after O'Brian's death in Dublin—Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed (2000). King appeared in a BBC documentary about O'Brian and on ABC World News Tonight and NPR's Talk of the Nation.

King followed this biography with the national bestseller Skeletons on the Zahara (2004), which tells the true story of the shipwreck of a Connecticut merchant brig Commerce on the west coast of Africa in 1815. The crew was enslaved on the desert by nomadic Arabs and had to travel 800 miles across the Sahara to reach freedom. Based on the memoirs of Captain James Riley and sailor Archibald Robbins, which King discovered in the New York Yacht Club library, and translated into ten languages, Skeletons was a multiple book of the year selection, the basis of a feature in National Geographic Adventure and a two-hour special documentary on the History Chanel. It is currently being developed as a feature film in London.

Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival, about the 30 courageous women who walked 4,000 miles across China with Mao Zedong, in 1934, was published in 2010. While crossing eleven provinces, the 30 women forded dozens of raging rivers, scaled ice-covered peaks on the Tibetan Plateau, and survived ambushes, bombings, severe hunger and thirst, typhoid fever, and the births of half a dozen children. Their epic march helped reshape China forever. Daniel A. Metraux, professor of Asian Studies at Mary Baldwin College wrote that "Unbound is a must read for any student of modern Chinese history and ranks with Red Star Over China as one of the classic narratives of the early days of the CCP.”

In addition to his books, King is a past director of book publishing at National Review, an original contributing editor to Men's Journal, and the founder of Bubba Magazine. He has contributed stories to Book Marks, Esquire, Men's Journal, National Geographic Adventure, New York, New York Times, Outside, Travel + Leisure, and the Daily Telegraph.

An avid hiker, King likes to clear his mind on cross-country treks. He writes:

I took my first major walk—190 miles coast to coast in England—in 1986 after escaping a tedious temporary job as sales clerk in a London Tie-Rack. The job made the open air all the more glorious, even if the cloud ceiling was about head high almost every day. Ever since then, my friend, Rob, an English investment banker, and I plan walks whenever we can. Various friends sign on for these no-frills holidays. On our first journey, we followed Alf Wainwright’s route through the North York Moors (stark and lovely like the end of the world), the Yorkshire Dales (where we encountered horizontal sheets of rain), and the Lake District (lush hills with rocky tops ringing with their literary inspiration). It was so much fun, we did it again in 2000.

In between, we walked Offa’s Dyke (160 rugged and breathtaking miles along the Welsh-English border) in 1987; Pilgrim’s Way, from Winchester, once the political center of England, to Canterbury, then the ecclesiastical center of England, with my wife and a friend in 1989; and the Tour du Mont Blanc, which takes you through Switzerland, France and England, in 1993. The toughest walk we have tackled was the Walkers' Haute Route, from Zermatt to Chamonix, in 1996. Each morning began with a brutal uphill stretch. One friend finally had to take a bus and meet us ahead."

In 1987, King and his wife, Jessica King, and some friends tackled the one-day Round Manhattan Walk (about 36 miles), about which King says, “The battering of walking on the pavement all day left me sorer than the New York Marathon would a few years later.” Other favorite journeys include the Mont Ventoux midnight climb, in France, the Na Pali Coast, in Kauai, Hawaii, and a series of inn-to-inn walks that Dean did for Mid-Atlantic Country Magazine: From Back Bay, Virginia, to the Outer Banks of North Carolina along the Allegheny Trail in West Virginia"; and on the Delaware River Trail, 1994.

In 1999, Dean sailed as a sailor trainee on board the tallship HMS Rose from New York to Bermuda. And in 2001, he retraced Captain James Riley’s route on foot and on camelback through Western Sahara, which informed his book Skeletons on the Zahara.

Dean is a founder, past co-chair, and advisory board member of the James River Writers organization, which sponsors the annual James River Writers Conference in Richmond, Virginia. Held on the first weekend of October at the Library of Virginia in historic downtown Richmond, the conference is known for its relaxed and collegial atmosphere as well as for its noteable guests. (Excerpted from the author's website.)

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Book Reviews
Skeletons is a page-turner, replete with gruesome details about thirst, a diet of dried locusts and animal bone marrow, relentless exposure to the sun and the changes in bodily functions that result. King's plot is right out of Homer: Will the stalwart captain and his mates ever see home again? ... Even armchair adventurers satiated with exotic travelogues will appreciate heroism amid adversity in this fast-paced account of slow torture—and an almost-happy ending.
Grace Lechenstein - Washington Post

When the American cargo ship Commerce ran aground on the northwestern shores of Africa in 1815 along with its crew of 12 Connecticut-based sailors, the misfortunes that befell them came fast and hard, from enslavement to reality-bending bouts of dehydration. King's aggressively researched account of the crew's once-famous ordeal reads like historical fiction, with unbelievable stories of the seamen's endurance of heat stroke, starvation and cruelty by their Saharan slavers. King (Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed), who went to Africa and, on camel and foot, retraced parts of the sailors' journey, succeeds brilliantly at making the now familiar sandscape seem as imposing and new as it must have been to the sailors. Every dromedary step thuds out from the pages with its punishing awkwardness, and each drop of brackish found water reprieves and tortures with its perpetual insufficiency. King's leisurely prose style rounds out the drama with well-parceled-out bits of context, such as the haggling barter culture of the Saharan nomadic Arabs and the geological history of Western Africa's coastline. Zahara (King's use of older and/or phonetic spellings helps evoke the foreignness of the time and place) impresses with its pacing, thoroughness and empathy for the plight of a dozen sailors heaved smack-hard into an unknown tribalism. By the time the surviving crew members make it back to their side of civilization, reader and protagonist alike are challenged by new ways of understanding culture clash, slavery and the place of Islam in the social fabric of desert-dwelling peoples. Maps, illus.
Publishers Weekly

In 1815, 12 men boarded the merchant ship Commerce in Connecticut, bound for the Cape Verde Islands after a brief stopover in Gibraltar. Weather and unfamiliar surroundings, however, caused the ship to wreck on the inhospitable coast of what is now Mauritania. Taken as slaves by regional nomads and separated (some never to be seen again), the dozen sailors endured great hardships. King (Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed) rivets with this account of Captain Riley's nine weeks of captivity: traveling inland nearly 800 miles, then back west, and finally north to Morocco, where he was luckily ransomed by an American consul. Referencing Riley's journals and those of crewman Robbin (which became best sellers in their day), King writes an astoundingly researched treatise on Islamic customs, nomadic life, and desert natural history, as well as detailed descriptions of dehydration, starvation, and caloric intake. Included are an 85-title bibliography, detailed maps of the northwest coast of Mauritania and Morocco, a glossary of Arabic terms, and wonderful photographs of King's own trip as he retraced Captain Riley's journey of enslavement. A wonderful, inspiring story of humankind's will to survive in spite of inhospitable conditions and inhumane treatment, this work should be in all public libraries, maritime libraries, and African collections. —Jim Thorsen, Weaverville, NC
Library Journal

The horrendous ordeal of 11 American seamen, shipwrecked on the Atlantic coast of North Africa and then sold into slavery, grippingly chronicled by adventure writer King. The War of 1812 had just ended, and Captain James Riley was hungry to get back to work on the brig Commerce, sailing out of Connecticut to buy cheap and sell dear in the wake of the British wartime blockade. But strange weather and bad luck sent Riley's ship onto the rocks of Atlantic Africa, then more bad luck put him and ten shipmates in the hands of nomads who took them into slavery. What happened over the next two months was so extraordinary that the narrative flies under its own steam, though King ably guides its progression and the reader's absorption, using two firsthand accounts published after the event as his source material. The degree of privation the men suffered was so absurd it's a wonder the nomads kept them at all, for their work value as slaves was scant. Yet there they are: sun-blasted, sand-blasted, wind-blasted, thighs chafed to bleeding ribbons from riding camels, feet shredded to the bone by sharp rocks, so thirsty that drinking urine was a comfort, so hungry they ate pieces of infected flesh that had been cut off the camels and the skin peeling off their own bodies. The men were split up, briefly reunited, then rudely separated; King plays these episodes like stringed instruments upon the reader's taut occupation with the proceedings. A lifetime of misery was packed into two months, after which six of the seamen, led by the worthy Riley, managed to convince a trader to buy them for the bounty he will receive from the European consul in Morocco. A jaw-dropping story kept on edge, along with the reader: exquisite and excruciating screw-turning.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
1. Just before the crew of the Commerce was captured by desert nomads, Riley stole some water from Dick Deslisle, the only black crew member. In his notes, the author observes that, although this theft might possibly be construed as an act of racism, Riley was, for a man of the early nineteenth century, "remarkably free of bigotry." Do you agree with this assessment of Riley's character? Why or why not?

2. In North America the discourse on slavery is nderstandably dominated by the paradigm of white plantation owners and black slaves. Throughout history, however, slavery has existed in a number of different forms on almost every continent in the world. How did reading Skeletons on the Zahara broaden your understanding of the institution of slavery?

3. Sidi Hamet is one of the most complex individuals in Skeletons on the Zahara. Even Riley "could never fully understand his ways." To what degree was Sidi Hamet's decision to help the sailors motivated by kindness? To what degree was his decision motivated by the prospect of financial gains?

4. Dean King notes that many an outsider has been perturbed by what T. E. Lawrence called the"crazed communism" of the desert. Indeed, Riley was shocked when a horde of Sahrawis descended freely upon a camel that Sidi Hamet had slaughtered to eat. Later, however, Riley and his men benefited from the hospitality of friendly Sahrawi tribes and must have begun to realize the value of sharing resources in the harsh desert. Can you name other examples in the book of desert customs that seemed peculiar at first but later revealed their value? Have you ever found a custom strange upon first glance, recognizing its beauty only later?

5. After the shipwreck, Riley "felt a swell of regret at the unfettered pursuit of wealth" practiced in the United States. Indeed, in Riley's era, men routinely risked their lives in order to eke out a living—and often paid the ultimate price. Can you think of any modernday equivalents to this scenario?

6. Under U.S. law, Riley was allowed to command the crew of the Commerce as a father would his children. Do you think Riley was a good leader? Did he make any decisions that you consider misguided or questionable? Did his authority over his men ever break down? Offer examples from the text to support your answers.

7. Although it may seem somewhat difficult to believe—especially since Riley and his men were often spat upon for being "Christian dogs"—the Quran holds Christians and Jews in relatively high regard. Were the men of the Commerce ever treated with the respect traditionally afforded to "People of the Book"?

8. The camel is essential to the survival of the Sahrawis. It is a means of transportation, a source of meat and nutrient rich milk, and a signifier of status. Can you think of another example in which the lives of a people are or were so dependent on a single natural resource or geographic feature? The ancient Egyptians and the Nile River is one example.

9. What do you think about Riley's sacrifice of Antonio Michel? Was it, as Dean King asserts,"best for his men, preserving for them an indisputable leader rather than an outsider, and an old man at that"? Or was it a cowardly act?

10. During World War I, soldiers in opposing trenches shared a bond forged in the fire of brutal common experience. At the same time, they felt disconnected from the people who remained at home, who they believed could never understand the horror of war. Did the Commerce crew, who shared the hardship of the desert with the Sahrawis, ever yield to the same psychology?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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