Into Books Review: Silent Riders of the Sea by John Gerard Fagan
Book: Silent Riders of the Sea
Author: John Gerard Fagan
Publisher: Cyberbirdy Publishing (2024)
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a scrap of bread
Who dies because of a yes or a no.
Primo Levi
This long narrative poem – the story of Jack, a man in the depths of despair heading to the Arctic on a filthy trawler in 1930 – sets the heart thinking and the brain racing. In Fagan’s writing, every verse tells a story, every line is filled with meaning, every word demands attention. This may be one man’s history, but it is also a nation’s story, retold through Jack’s father’s life in the land of the fathers:
but the world changed
moved on
the great war
not enough work for the men that came after
Fagan’s free verse and metre make rhythmic designs on the page as the story unfolds in short stanzas, interiority mixing with the external world, the immediate past as present as the here and now. This is particularly poignant in birth:
having a wean
it changes you
the man he was vanished the day that boy was born
time brings the same visceral elements:
everything eases with time
that’s what he got told when his father died
but some things can’t
some hurts are too deep
Fagan’s powerful expressions of loneliness, seen throughout his memoir, Fish Town (Guts Publishing, 2021), are replicated in the last two lines of where the sun beats:
a nervous energy sank into the bones of his chest
and a fresh loneliness hatched once more
On board this grotesque ship with its gruesome gaffer and hopeless crew, the external world reaches into Jack’s mind, reading like a gothic horror with all the tropes of the monstrous sea. Jack is suffering physically and mentally after leaving sorrow behind in his mining town in the central belt. Fagan tells his story through memories of fresh fields and Campsie glens turned industrial but filled too with happy childhood memories which he wants his own child to experience. This is why he doesn’t emigrate after the Depression following the Great War and why he gives his life to the pits putting his family through extreme poverty in the process.
Guilt and grief at the death of his son bring Jack to the sea, and a promise of starting afresh, but he is not prepared for the waves of anguish which slap him on board, or the material sufferings from the dreich hell he finds himself in. Our protagonist is caught in the midst of an existential crisis, surrounded by weak and hungry men, bullied by a gaffer who reads like a character from a Dickens novel set in a Stevenson sea tale, who will never relent until he has a fulsome catch:
the men swayed like broken waves on an unforgiving shore
one hour of overtime turned into two
three
four
enough complaining
I don’t want to hear another fucking word
overtime
But it is the poet’s craft that is the most alluring aspect of this book for me. The patterns formed and use of white space tell the story as much as alliteration, assonance and slant rhyme. Fagan’s verses match the dark, blurry images that he has created to complement the imagery of his words. Open punctuation maintains the flow and timbre and Scots words and abbreviations – ‘n’ every time for ‘and’ for example – add authenticity to the narrative voice. The richness of text is equalled by Fagan’s hollow pictures with liminal vibes, generating fear and tension in the reader who can feel the freeze and hear the wind that swallows the psyche of men who are losing all hope. This is not an Arctic story in the spirit of adventure; it is one man’s desperate journey to rescue the remnants of his relationship with Erin, his wife, the woman he loves:
never as much as looked at another woman
never wanted to
erin
In this quest Jack also attempts to drag his own soul up from the depths while living with the dregs of Scottish society:
Jack slipped away to his bunk
and sank into a dreamless sleep
dregs
thirteen days encapsulates the on-board horror if you weren’t convinced by the vomit, rats and stench from earlier verses:
ears were one of the worst things to have on an Arctic ship
swollen skin peeling
needles in n out
constant pain
This poem creates a sense of Conradian darkness mingled with Coleridgean mystery, but this is no myth, and the reality of suicide and sickness is all too obvious as the pages are turned. In the midst of this seeming perdition, Jack – a good man in many respects – reflects on the escapism of reading in his life on shore, when Russian novels and mariners’ tales helped him cope with the dreadful reality of life and accidents in the pits:
Jack had never left Scotland
but he had been all over the world through stories
novel
There is no escape from the icy environment that surrounds him though, as comrades fall ill, and the gaffer shows as little remorse for dealing with a sick human being as he did for a captured mammal. With the seal:
he smashed it over the head
again
and again
and again
he spat n wiped sweat dripping from his grey eyebrows
booted the carcass back into the water
wildlife
For the man:
it took several blows to return the silence
the earless creature lay wriggling on the deck
before being helped to the bunks
Jack never saw him again.
memories of violence
Every man has a history though and there are hints at the gaffer’s own glimpses into the netherworld, but this does not change his furious push for the final catch when for an instant the crew dared to believe they were headed home. The reality hits Jack one night as he lies sleepless in his stinking bed, more bunk space available than before:
he turned n faced the ceiling
things were starting to make sense
the gaffer never intended to pay them all did he
maybe not any of them
lies of the ship
Though permanently in darkness, our hearts are lifted by snatches of loving memories, none more so than the happiest day of his life – a day off from the pit. But anger bubbles and whispers of mutiny against the haar arise:
he was the haar
and nothing n nobody could reason with him
Fagan builds the tension further through shifting weather and mounting rage:
the gaffer was without doubt a sadistic bastard
nothing on that ship was clearer
fury
The metaphor of the sea as life is ever present in Silent Riders as fish eyes are sucked out and bones thrown back, but awe strikes as a killer whales passes, and tenderness softens the bleakness when Jack nurses a sick young seabird. His sorrow at the loss of his son is ever present but his reason to stay alive in the ghastly ship remains constant and his determination to do so never wavers.
This story will haunt you, as classic stories often do but in its depth of horror I am reminded more of Primo Levi’s relentless struggle to survive in Birkenhau than of traditional sea adventures; the ship becomes a battleground, a site for the survival of the fittest and the question of who might triumph is almost immaterial as the essence of the story seems to be the suffering of the oppressed for the benefit of the richest and most powerful in any society, in any period of time. Will Jack face Hades as the deep green mist that suddenly appears on the sea’s surface suggests he might, or will moral justice prevail?
It is this question that keeps you reading through the smog; Jack’s ethical hope that keeps the pages alive. The awfulness continues to be intercepted with loving thoughts of Erin and Jack’s promise to come back to her as the man he once was. But when tempers snap different fears arise and we begin to wonder if Jack and his fellow sufferers will make it back home. Sea and storms become the greatest enemies and memories of birthdays and home Jack’s only peace as the crew dwindles, frail with fever and starvation, and morality is set adrift. His fate becomes truly terrifying and like him, you begin to wonder if the underworld is his only destination.
I loved Fish Town, and this poetic tale set in different waters, doesn’t disappoint.
Silent Riders of the Sea can be purchased HERE.
L M Mulholland
@LorettaMulholl1
