Into the blue: family secrets and the search for a great lakes shipwreck

Award-winning Journalist Andrea Curtis Explores The Shadows Cast Over Her Family By A Century-old Shipwreck And Uncovers The Tragedy, Disaster And Promise Of Early Life On The Great Lakes. Every Family Has A Story, Passed Down Through Generations. For Andrea Curtis That Story Is The Wreck Of The Ss J.h. Jones. In 1906, The Late-november Swells Of Georgian Bay Erupt Into A Blinding Storm, Sinking The Jones And Claiming The Lives Of All On Board. Left In The Wake Is Captain Jim Crawford’s One-year-old Daughter, Eleanor, Who Faces A Daunting Future Of Poverty And Isolation. But Eleanor Emerges From Her Childhood Determined To Leave Behind The Restrictions Of Her Small Town. She Plunges Into The Excitement Of Jazz-era California And 1930s Montreal, Struggling To Become A Poet And A Writer. Almost A Century Later, Andrea Knows Her Grandmother Eleanor Only As A Sophisticated, Respected Montreal Matriarch. Until, While Researching Jim Crawford’s Role In The Jones Tragedy, She Discovers That Eleanor Had A Hidden Past. Using Family Stories, Archival Research And Fictionalized Re-enactments, Andrea Curtis Narrates Her Family’s History, And That Of The Place They Once Called Home. Into The Blue Shimmers With Curtis’s Rich And Reflective Voice, Recreating A Little-known But Formative Time When Canadians Persevered Through Unthinkable Loss, Violence And Disaster, And Brings To Life A Grand Era Of Great Lakes History. This Is A Worthy Peer To Such Beloved Memoirs As David Macfarlane’s The Danger Tree And Roy Macgregor’s A Life In The Bush.