In 1971, Elizabeth Garber’s domineering father announced he was sending his “problem children”—seventeen-year-old bookish Elizabeth and her fourteen-year-old brother Woodie—to a school on a sailing ship, in order to “shape up and learn to work.” Sailing at the Edge of Disaster: A Memoir of a Young Woman’s Daring Year chronicles Garber’s adventures, along with the fifty teen misfits and their teacher chaperones aboard the sailing school housed on a once-magnificent yacht formerly owned by General Post heiress, socialite, and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post. Sailing at the Edge of Disaster follows the journey of Oceanics School students and faculty as they motor the limping ship out of Miami to begin the grand itinerary their charismatic twenty-five-year-old school director envisioned. Along the way, the ship survives a gale at sea, a hole in the hull at deep water, an act of piracy, a near miss with a nuclear sub, and are held hostage by armed gunboats in Panama. The print version of the book was published by Toad Hall Editions, Northport, ME.
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“This elegant nautical memoir tells the story of a young woman’s courageous personal struggle for independence.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A beautiful, high-stakes coming-of-age tale about survival on an old square-sailed rigger.”
— Susan Conley, author of Landslide and The Foremost Good FortuneBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Elizabeth W. Garber is the author of Implosion: A Memoir of an Architect’s Daughter (2018). She has published three books of poetry: True Affections (2012), Listening Inside the Dance (2005), and Pierced by the Seasons (2004). Maine (Island Time) (2013) is a collaboration of her poetry with paintings and photographs of Michael Weymouth. Three poems have been read on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac.
Garber received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Program, was awarded writing fellowships at Virginia Center for Creative Arts and Jentel Artist Residency, and received a BA in Humanities from Johns Hopkins and a Master in Acupuncture from the Traditional Acupuncture Institute. She has maintained a private practice as an acupuncturist for nearly forty years in mid-coast Maine, where she raised her family. Visit her at elizabethgarber.com.
Stacey Glemboski is a seasoned voice artist and audiobook narrator of many books in the science fiction and young adult fiction genres.