the Midnight Watch
David Dyer
John Steadman is a body man. His reporting for the Boston American newspaper involves finding those bodies, and writing a story of them that brings their lives back. When he gets caught up in the story of the ship that watched the Titanic sink, he finds himself losing himself in the story – to the loss of his own job.
What I loved was that the blending of fact and fiction made me feel at home in the novel. I didn’t object that I never really understood everything behind Lord’s motives. I didn’t mind that there was no happy ending.
I did feel a little confused towards the end, when John’s story of the Titanic is published. There is a disconnect between John’s words and the story, despite this being in chronological order as far as I could see. I felt that John’s newspaper story could have come at the very end of the novel, and I still would have been happy – as I would have seen it as an overall conclusion.
Confession – I’ve never seen The Titanic! Nor do I ever hope to have to sit through it. As far as I can tell, it’s a ‘classic timeless love story’ and I barely have the patience to sit through one of those in novel form, let alone a movie!
Giving this beauty 4 stars. It was surprisingly gripping, despite already knowing the major outcome (pretty much everyone on the Titanic died). Kudos to Dyer for this fantastic and well written novel, and my absolute condolences on it being from your Doctorate!
