Brian Murphy

Brian Murphy is the Russia and East Asia editor at The Washington Post. He is the author of four nonfiction books, including The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery and Lore of the Persian Carpet and 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska’s Frozen Wilderness.

Murphy's new book is Adrift: A True Story of Tragedy on the Icy Atlantic and the One Man who Lived to Tell about It.

From his Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: You write that you first learned something about this story in an exhibit about shipwrecks. How did that eventually lead to your writing Adrift?

A: The first thing, of course, was that the exhibit mentioned a single survivor. This meant there was likely some kind of diary or personal account stashed away in an archive or family records.

It became quickly apparent there was enough for a compelling story that had never been told in full. The survivor, Thomas W. Nye, was front-page news at the time when shipwrecks (without a survivor to tell the tale) were often relegated to short items in the press.

But the research soon led me to wider narratives and subplots. Early 1856 was a terrible period for North Atlantic ice. It was one of the worst in generations, according to some ship captains.

At least three other vessels went down around the same time as the John Rutledge, the ship in Adrift. More than 830 people lost their lives in the North Atlantic in the span of eight weeks. Amazingly, one of the owners of the John Rutledge was aboard one of the other ships that went down.

Irish emigrants accounted for most of those lost at sea during that horrible stretch. This created another element in the book. I wanted to...[read on]

Learn more about Adrift, and follow Brian Murphy on Facebook.

The Page 99 Test: Adrift.

--Marshal Zeringue