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allaboutfrodo 's review for:
Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean
by Richard Logan
inspiring
sad
Alone tells the harrowing story of a young girl who saw her family murdered and who then spent four days alone on a small cork float in the ocean. It’s an amazing story of resilience and survival.
Terry Jo Duperrault was the middle child in her family, which consisted of a mother, a father, and three children. The Duperraults lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and father Arthur, an optometrist, dreamed of taking his family on a sea cruise in warmer waters. He had served in the Navy in World War II and loved the sea. The entire family was athletic and loved to be outside.
Unfortunately, they picked the wrong man and the wrong boat for their adventure. Julian Harvey was a supposed war hero with a shady past. He captained the Bluebelle, sixty feet long and fifteen feet wide. Unknown to the family, Harvey had a history of crashing planes and boats. His fourth wife also served on the Bluebelle.
The trip started well, until one morning Julian Harvey was seen by another ship on a dinghy, towing a raft containing a drowned Rene Duperrault. He claimed there had been a terrible accident. A squall had damaged the boat, ruptured gas lines had started a fire, and all the other passengers were injured and trapped. He was the sole survivor, he claimed. A few days later, 11-year-old Terry Jo Dupperault was found stranded in the ocean on a small float, sun burned, dehydrated and near death. No one knows exactly what happened, not even Terry Jo, but she had seen enough to know that Harvey’s story was a lie. Harvey committed suicide soon after.
The sad story of the Bluebelle and the Duperrault family was a celebrated case when it happened in 1961. I wasn’t born yet so I was not familiar with it. Author Logan has done a good job of pulling together the known facts and speculating on what might have happened that ended with Harvey’s wife and four members of the Duperrault family dead. The book is very readable and the author weaves together backstory with information about the tragedy. (My one complaint is that the narrative makes a lot of Harvey’s stammer and “lazy eye,” neither of which indicates that someone might be a psychopathic narcissistic murderer.)
Although published in 2010, this book feels like it was written in the 1960s. I’m always glad to see libraries acknowledged for their assistance with research, and a number are listed in Alone’s bibliography. If you like to read true crime and stories of resilience and survival, you might want to check out Alone.
Terry Jo Duperrault was the middle child in her family, which consisted of a mother, a father, and three children. The Duperraults lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and father Arthur, an optometrist, dreamed of taking his family on a sea cruise in warmer waters. He had served in the Navy in World War II and loved the sea. The entire family was athletic and loved to be outside.
Unfortunately, they picked the wrong man and the wrong boat for their adventure. Julian Harvey was a supposed war hero with a shady past. He captained the Bluebelle, sixty feet long and fifteen feet wide. Unknown to the family, Harvey had a history of crashing planes and boats. His fourth wife also served on the Bluebelle.
The trip started well, until one morning Julian Harvey was seen by another ship on a dinghy, towing a raft containing a drowned Rene Duperrault. He claimed there had been a terrible accident. A squall had damaged the boat, ruptured gas lines had started a fire, and all the other passengers were injured and trapped. He was the sole survivor, he claimed. A few days later, 11-year-old Terry Jo Dupperault was found stranded in the ocean on a small float, sun burned, dehydrated and near death. No one knows exactly what happened, not even Terry Jo, but she had seen enough to know that Harvey’s story was a lie. Harvey committed suicide soon after.
The sad story of the Bluebelle and the Duperrault family was a celebrated case when it happened in 1961. I wasn’t born yet so I was not familiar with it. Author Logan has done a good job of pulling together the known facts and speculating on what might have happened that ended with Harvey’s wife and four members of the Duperrault family dead. The book is very readable and the author weaves together backstory with information about the tragedy. (My one complaint is that the narrative makes a lot of Harvey’s stammer and “lazy eye,” neither of which indicates that someone might be a psychopathic narcissistic murderer.)
Although published in 2010, this book feels like it was written in the 1960s. I’m always glad to see libraries acknowledged for their assistance with research, and a number are listed in Alone’s bibliography. If you like to read true crime and stories of resilience and survival, you might want to check out Alone.