Author Event: David Grann, The Wager

This is an author event you simply cannot miss! Darien Library, along with Barrett Bookstore and Darien Sail & Power Squadron, are thrilled to welcome bestselling author, David Grann, to discuss his new book.

About the Book

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder is the fascinating story of a ramshackle vessel that washes up on the coast of Brazil in January of 1742. Hear about its survivors -- of His Majesty’s Ship, The Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740. The Wager left on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain--and the fascinating story that they tell. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then … six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile, containing just three castaways, telling a very different story. They called the thirty sailors who landed in Brazil in January mutineers, not heroes. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, and it became clear that while stranded on the island, the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang. 

For fans of history, this mesmerizing true story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, with the twists and turns of a thriller, is for you!

David Grann's son Zach has written a song based on The Wager, and will perform it on the piano for all to enjoy.

About the Author

David Grann is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. His newest book, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, was published in April of 2023.

Grann is also the author of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, which documented one of the most sinister crimes and racial injustices in American history. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and a winner of the Edgar Allen Poe Award for best true crime book and has been adapted into a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Grann’s first book, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, was #1 New York Times bestseller and has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. The book was adapted into a critically acclaimed film directed by James Gray. Over the years, Grann’s stories have appeared in The Best American Crime Writing; The Best American Sports Writing; and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. His stories have also been published in the New York Times Magazine, Atlantic, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Wall Street Journal. He is a frequent speaker who has given talks about everything from Killers of the Flower Moon and the importance of historical memory to the dangers of complicity in unjust systems, and from the art of writing and detection to the leadership methods of explorers, such as Ernest Shackleton.

Grann holds master’s degrees in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and creative writing from Boston University. After graduating from Connecticut College, in 1989, he received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and did research in Mexico, where he began his career in journalism. He currently lives in New York with his wife and two children.

Books will be available for purchase at the event, courtesy of Barrett Bookstore.