438 Days

November 1, 2015

In an amazing story of endurance, ingenuity, and pure tenacity, Franklin (33 Men: Inside the Miraculous Survival and Dramatic Rescue of the Chilean Miners) relates how Salvadoran fisherman Jose Salvador Alvarenga survived adrift on the Pacific Ocean for 438 days. On November 17, 2012, Alvarenga and his first-mate Ezequiel Cordoba were caught in a fierce storm off Mexico's southwest coast and swept out to sea after their boat's motor failed. Based on author interviews with Alvarenga, his friends and family, scientists, U.S. Coast Guard rescue experts, diplomats, and others involved in the saga, Franklin presents a gripping narrative detailing how Alvarenga survived. Over the next 14 months, while drifting thousands of miles across the Pacific, Alvarenga caught and ate raw fish, sharks, birds and turtles; collected and drank rainwater; and scavenged through Pacific trash he encountered. Cordoba died three months into the voyage after refusing to eat anything except turtle; he was buried at sea. On January 29, 2014, Alvarenga beached his boat in the Marshall Islands, 6,500 miles away. As one expert summed up this feat, "[Alvarenga] was extremely unlucky and terribly fortunate at the same time." VERDICT This book will thrill readers of true-life adventures and survival.--Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Lib., IN

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2015
Stranded at sea for months on end with no salvation in sight, Salvador Alvarenga turned to anything he could get his hands on to survive. But in addition to his prowess in hunting birds and catching fish, his ability to escape in his mind played an enormous role in his feat of surviving 14 months adrift in the Pacific Ocean, as recounted by reporter Franklin in this harrowing tale. As a fisherman off the coast of Mexico, Alvarenga had faced his share of close calls at sea. But when a storm blew him and his mate miles out from shore and their motor quit, it was the beginning of what would become the longest known voyage by a survivor in a small boat, totaling 9,000 miles. Franklin sprinkles the story with expert opinions to give it depth and context, but the most striking details are those offered by Alvarenga himself about the challenges he faced day in and day out. A spectacular triumph of grit over adversity, 438 Days is an intense, immensely absorbing read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

October 1, 2015
One man's grueling odyssey across the Pacific Ocean on a crippled 25-foot fishing vessel. Documentarian and journalist Franklin (33 Men: Inside the Miraculous Survival and Dramatic Rescue of the Chilean Miners, 2011) meticulously re-creates the harrowing voyage of Salvador Alvarenga, a fisherman whose boat lost motor power hours after leaving the coast of Mexico and was cast adrift upon the ocean in November 2012. Since his arrival in the fishing village of Costa Azul four years prior, optimistic Alvarenga managed a unique work-life balance where "four-day drinking binges might be followed by ten days of non-stop fishing. Or vice versa." It was during one of these lengthy fishing trips when he and young shipmate Ezequiel Cordoba ran into trouble. Expertly culled together from nine months of recollective personal interviews with Alvarenga as well as official search-and-rescue documentation, Franklin describes what was intended as a 30-hour expedition, but one that ran into stormy weather (forewarned to him by the boat's owner). As much as the men attempted to navigate and stabilize through the squall, the boat's motor, radio, and GPS all failed, blowing them far off course and well beyond the Mexican Coast Guard's limited reach. The ensuing months aboard the boat form an exhaustive, unnerving, and exquisitely surreal survival narrative as Alvarenga, becoming increasingly imperiled and helpless, began implementing desperate self-preservation tactics in order to fend off starvation, dehydration, scurvy, and hungry oceanic predators. More than a year later, in early 2014, Alvarenga was discovered naked and delirious in the Marshall Islands, 5,500 miles away from where he initially set sail (Cordoba died several months into the journey). Though Franklin admits to initially doubting the veracity of Alvarenga's story ("Who survives 14 months at sea?"), his vicarious documentation ultimately became "an adventure and an education that I will never forget." Meanwhile, Alvarenga now celebrates the innumerable "small pleasures" of the simple life on land. Though the story is clouded with public skepticism, this is a fascinating, action-packed account of long-term survival on the open seas.

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