The sea captain's wife A true story of mutiny, love, and adventure at the bottom of the world

Review by Booklist Review

Mazzeo mines, to thrilling effect, the little-known 1856 story of a young, pregnant woman who navigates a clipper ship around Cape Horn when her sea-captain husband takes ill. Married at 15, Mary Ann Brown learned all about navigation with the encouragement of her husband, Captain Joshua Patten; the author notes that, if she were male, she might have been a captain herself. To earn enough money to build a farm, Joshua decides to take up a challenge to race his ship from New York to San Francisco in 100 days or less. There are dangers aplenty, including a mutinous first mate. After 18 stormy days with hurricane-force winds and waves 50 feet tall--not to mention the fog and the icebergs--Mary Ann successfully steers the clipper to San Francisco, becoming the first woman to command such a vessel. The journey does not end there; there are also the difficulties of overland travel home, wresting the money owed to them from the ship's owners, and the effects of Mary Ann's popularity. Mazzeo turns exemplary research into nineteenth-century maritime history into a fascinating tale.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this immersive account, literature scholar Mazzeo (Sisters in Resistance) spotlights a woman who was once "no less celebrated... than Florence Nightingale." In the 1850s, amid the California Gold Rush, huge, fast clippers routinely circumnavigated the treacherous tip of South America. The captains were international celebrities, and young Joshua Patten longed to achieve such superstardom. However, bad luck struck in 1856, when he and other captains decided to race to California, leaving too early in the season: at such short notice, Patten hired a "hot-headed, violent, and duplicitous" first mate; then, during the voyage, Patten was laid up with tuberculosis. But his wife, pregnant 19-year-old Mary Ann, a petite woman self-taught at "celestial navigation," was able to convince the crew to accept her as captain, and proceeded to sail them safely through incredible storms and fields of icebergs, foiling the nefarious first mate not once but twice along the way. Mazzeo offers plenty of juicy details about sea life; her tracking of events on land is less captivating, though readers will learn much about the grisly horrors of mid-19th-century travel. She also follows the Pattens' story, a somewhat unrelentingly tragic one, beyond the famed voyage itself (when they disembarked, Mary Ann, disallowed as a woman from conducting business transactions, couldn't even raise funds for her husband's medical care). The result is a bracing high-seas adventure and a forgotten slice of women's history. (Dec.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

---

Review by Library Journal Review

Mazzeo (How To Write a Bestseller) has written a remarkable biography of Mary Ann Patten, the teenage wife of a Maine clipper ship captain, whose self-taught knowledge of navigation saved the lives of her husband and his crew during a voyage around the tip of South America. Mazzeo sets the stage by introducing readers to New England's seafaring culture in the mid-19th century; the economics that made it a hub of maritime commerce; the dangers faced by ship captains who were pushed by owners to complete ever faster voyages; and the new "extreme" clippers that made celebrities out of record-breaking captains. The enterprising Mary Ann spent her first circumnavigation of the globe studying her husband's navigational charts and instruments, taking readings and gaining knowledge she would use to good effect when her husband fell ill during their next voyage. Drawing on contemporary newspaper accounts, Mazzeo imagines the thoughts and emotions of the 19-year-old Mary Ann as she faced a ferocious storm in the Drake Passage, as well as a treacherous first mate and a potentially mutinous crew. VERDICT An engrossing nonfiction adventure that should appeal to anyone interested in nautical history.--Sara Shreve

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Review by Kirkus Book Review

A rip-roaring, seafaring adventure with a twist. Mazzeo, the author ofThe Widow Clicquot, has fashioned a captivating role-reversal tale. In crisp prose, it begins in Maine's Penobscot Bay, home to hundreds of sea captains, including Joshua Adams Patten and his 19-year-old wife, Mary Ann. In 1854 he secured the captainship of a massive clipper, the dozen-sailedFlying Scud. He sailed from New York to Liverpool and back, earning a fine salary and a handsome race wager. In 1855 he was chosen to captain the clipper shipNeptune's Car to circumnavigate the globe. If successful, he would receive a massive payout. He and Mary Ann agreed that she would accompany him. For the first time, he confronted dangerous waves in Drake's Passage, between South America and Antarctica. Mazzeo does a fine job explaining how the waves affect ships and the nuances of celestial navigation. Despite an impressive 101-day voyage to San Francisco, Patten lost a $2,000 race wager by hours. In Hong Kong, he took on tea for cargo and sailed to London, where it would bring high prices. Once back home, Patten quickly received another commission for the same voyage, including a five-ship race wager and a new, disgruntled first mate. Patten had to demote him, so when the captain became ill, it was Mary Ann, who was pregnant and had no sea training, who scoured navigational maps and medical texts to steer a course through Drake's Passage amid foul weather and a questioning crew. On September 5, 1856, with a gun hidden under her oilskin, she addressed the crew with "one hell of a speech." For the first time ever, a woman became captain of a merchant ship--with the crew's approval. Awaiting them were terrible weather and icebergs--and the hope of returning home. A thoroughly entertaining, delightful story. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

---