Some stories are so enthralling they deserve to be retold generation after generation. The wreck in 1815 of the Connecticut merchant ship, Commerce, and the subsequent ordeal of its crew in the Sahara Desert, is one such story. With Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival, Dean King refreshes the popular nineteenth-century narrative once read and admired by Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, and Abraham Lincoln. King’s version, which actually draws from two separate first person accounts of the Commerce's crew, offers a page-turning blend of science, history, and classic adventure. The book begins with a seeming false start: tracing the lives of two merchants from North Africa, Seid and Sidi Hamet, who lose their fortunes—and almost their lives—when their massive camel caravan arrives at a desiccated oasis. King then jumps to the voyage of the Commerce under Captain Riley and his 11-man crew. After stops in New Orleans and Gibraltar, the ship falls off course en route to the Canary Islands and ultimately wrecks at the infamous Cape Bojador. After the men survive the first predations of the nomads on the shore, they meander along the coast looking for a way inland as their supplies dwindle. They subsist for days by drinking their own urine. Eventually, to their horror, they discover that they have come aground on the edge of the Sahara Desert. They submit themselves, with hopes of getting food and water, as slaves to the Oulad Bou Sbaa. After days of abuse, they are bought by Hamet, who, after his own experiences with his failed caravan (described at the novels opening), sympathizes with the plight of the crew. Together, they set off on a hellish journey across the desert to collect a bounty for Hamet in Swearah. King embellishes this compelling narrative throughout with scientific and historical material explaining the origins of the camel, the market for English and American slaves, and the stages of dehydration. He also humanizes the Sahrawi with background on the tribes and on the lives of Hamet and Seid. This material, doled out in sufficient amounts to enrich the story without derailing it makes Skeletons on the Zahara a perfectly entertaining bit of history that feels like a guilty pleasure. --Patrick O'Kelley


From Publishers Weekly
When the American cargo ship Commerce ran aground on the northwestern shores of Africa in 1815 along with its crew of 12 Connecticut-based sailors, the misfortunes that befell them came fast and hard, from enslavement to reality-bending bouts of dehydration. King's aggressively researched account of the crew's once-famous ordeal reads like historical fiction, with unbelievable stories of the seamen's endurance of heat stroke, starvation and cruelty by their Saharan slavers. King (Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed), who went to Africa and, on camel and foot, retraced parts of the sailors' journey, succeeds brilliantly at making the now familiar sandscape seem as imposing and new as it must have been to the sailors. Every dromedary step thuds out from the pages with its punishing awkwardness, and each drop of brackish found water reprieves and tortures with its perpetual insufficiency. King's leisurely prose style rounds out the drama with well-parceled-out bits of context, such as the haggling barter culture of the Saharan nomadic Arabs and the geological history of Western Africa's coastline. Zahara (King's use of older and/or phonetic spellings helps evoke the foreignness of the time and place) impresses with its pacing, thoroughness and empathy for the plight of a dozen sailors heaved smack-hard into an unknown tribalism. By the time the surviving crew members make it back to their side of civilization, reader and protagonist alike are challenged by new ways of understanding culture clash, slavery and the place of Islam in the social fabric of desert-dwelling peoples. Maps, illus.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
The latest in the recent spate of true disaster tales, Skeletons on the Zahara should come with a warning sticker like those on prescription drug bottles: Do Not Take With Food. Dean King, author of a well-received biography of novelist Patrick O'Brian, recounts the tribulations of a crew of American sailors who were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa in 1815, captured, sold into slavery, fed almost nothing, forced to drink camel urine, and then schlepped all over the desert sands.Joking aside, Skeletons is a page-turner, replete with gruesome details about thirst, a diet of dried locusts and animal bone marrow, relentless exposure to the sun and the changes in bodily functions that result. King's plot is right out of Homer: Will the stalwart captain and his mates ever see home again? He has structured it in such cinematic terms that one can almost see the words "An Anthony Minghella film" superimposed on the opening scene -- a caravan of 1,000 Arab merchants and their 4,000 camels stretched across the Sahara, caught in a howling sandstorm. One merchant, Sidi Hamet, had made repeated trips from Morocco to Tombucktoo (King prefers older spellings of place-names, hence the "Zahara" of the title), ferrying loads of barley, cloth, salt and other goods to be traded for gold, exotic items such as ostrich feathers and slaves. He happened upon a nomad's tent camp, where a bedraggled slave who turned out to be an American sea captain made him an enticing offer: Bring him and his scattered crew to safety in a northern settlement, and they would be ransomed for "many pieces of silver." Hamet was in a quandary. Unsure of whether to trust the word of a "Christian dog," he prayed to Allah for guidance.Flash back to Middletown, Conn., a bustling New England shipping center, at the close of the War of 1812. Capt. James Riley and his crew of 10 were preparing the merchant brig Commerce for an ambitious journey. They would go first to New Orleans, then the West Indies and on to Gibraltar and the Cape Verde islands off the African coast, where they would buy salt, a commodity that should earn a handsome profit back in the United States. Once the ship is under sail, the story gathers force. King has based his account on Riley's own narrative, which was published in 1817 and had a wide readership throughout the 19th century. (King says that Abraham Lincoln was among its fans and never forgot the saga of Riley's ordeal.) In Gibraltar, the crew was almost drowned before the action began, as a wave washed over their longboat after a visit with another ship. King quotes Riley as writing ominously, "We were spared in order to suffer a severer doom." Indeed, doom hovered over the ship when it ran aground off Cape Bojador in the middle of nothing, just north of the Tropic of Cancer. When the sailors made their first foray onshore, they were driven away by a band of wild local folk. They escaped in their longboat, only to be shipwrecked again farther south. Soon, fierce nomads captured them, stole most of their clothes and split them up among different bands to be bought, sold and bartered as property. At this point, the Sahara becomes the star of the story. King does a fine job of bringing readers up to speed at judicious intervals on the customs of the time both in the seafaring world and in global geopolitics. However, the knowledge he shares about the hostility of the desert climate, the brutality of the warring tribes that inhabit it but cannot tame it, and the toll it takes on people and animals alike is graphic and scary. One captive went temporarily blind from the sand and sun. Sores on bodies reduced to skin and bone made walking and even sleeping agonizing. A swarm of locusts carpeted the landscape; the nomads gathered and ate them. A former slave reportedly gnawed on his own limbs for sustenance. The castaways on "Survivor" and contestants on "Fear Factor" wouldn't have lasted an hour. As King writes, "the Saharan climate was arguably the most extreme on earth. Its temperature could sizzle at more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, the ground temperature soaring 50 degrees higher in the sun; at night, the thermometer could plunge as much as 85 degrees. . . . While only about a tenth of the Sahara is covered in barren sand dunes . . . almost equally formidable are its stepped plains of wind-stripped rock covered in boulders, stones, and dust." Thirsty yet? King interrupts his tale just long enough for vivid discourses on how humans suffer through various stages of dehydration; the gastrointestinal workings of camels; Saharan customs (no matter who finds food, anyone in the vicinity can elbow his way into a meal; thieves are entitled to take anything left unwatched by its owner); and nomads' dietary preferences (they don't like fish and, being Muslim, won't eat pork).The redoubtable Riley promised Hamet a reward from a friend in Swearah (known today as Essaouira, in southern Morocco) if Hamet could get the dispersed sailors there safely. The question became: Could Hamet sneak past not just other marauding bands, who would love to rob him of his bounty, but also his nasty father-in-law, Sheik Ali? Early on, Riley had a dream that, after many trials, he would encounter his savior, a man in Western dress on horseback. As the story's unremitting barbarism continues, not just the Commerce's crew but also the reader is likely to pine for the greenery of Connecticut. Even armchair adventurers satiated with exotic travelogues will appreciate heroism amid adversity in this fast-paced account of slow torture -- and an almost-happy ending. Reviewed by Grace LichtensteinCopyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


From Booklist
This shipwreck-and-survival saga occurred in 1815 in the wind-tortured territory of the modern Western Sahara and was promptly written down by American brigantine captain James Riley. So popular it appeared in six different editions, Riley's account is revived here with the benefit of author King's journey to retrace, in part, the 800-mile desert trek of Riley and his shipwrecked crew. King provides animated descriptions of the desert environment while covering the events Riley related, which included being sold into slavery. The dramatic incidents are supported with relevant details, such as the way the body reacts to dehydration and sun poisoning. Perhaps the story's most intriguing element is the mutual understanding that developed between Riley and his eventual master, Sidi Hamet. A debt Hamet owed to his father-in-law propels the entire drama, as Hamet spirits his slaves through lands of scimitar-swinging brigands for ransoming to a Western consul. This is both a forcefully visceral and culturally astute account. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Doug Stanton, author of IN HARM'S WAY
"...an amazing, mind-boggling story of courage and endurance, rivalling Shackleton's drama and surpassing Krakauer's climb on Everest...a desert epic..."


Charles Slack, author of NOBLE OBSESSION
"...incredibly true tale...best of al...are the sweet notes of nobility and kindness that transcend culture...and the burning sands..."


Dr. DJ Ratcliffe, Emeritus Reader, History, University of Durham
"A grand book..."


Book Description
In 1815, twelve American sailors washed up on the shore of North Africa. Captured and sold into slavery, they were then dragged along on an insane journey through the bone-dry heart of the Sahara--a region no Westerners had ever explored. Rain was expected once every six years and it was so hot that cadavers naturally mummified. Along the way the Americans would encounter everything that could possibly test them: barbarism, murder, starvation, death, dehydration, and hostile tribes that roamed the desert on armies of camels. SKELETONS ON THE ZAHARA will remind readers of the bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, but in settings more exotic and with hardships even more difficult to survive. From the cold waters of the Atlantic to the searing Saharan sands, from the heart of the desert to the heart of man, SKELETONS ON THE ZAHARA is a spectacular odyssey through the extremes. This is quite simply the most exciting adventure story to be published in years.


Download Description
An incredible story of shipwrecked American sailors sold into slavery in North Africa and dragged through the hellish interior of the Sahara.


About the Author
Dean King is the author of numerous books, including the highly acclaimed biography Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed, and has written for many publications, including Men's Journal, Esquire, Outside, New York magazine, and the New York Times. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"On a calm May morning in 1815, Captain James Riley and the crew of the Commerce left port in Connecticut for an ordinary trading voyage. They could never have imagined what awaited them." Their nightmare began with a dreadful shipwreck off the coast of Africa, a hair-raising confrontation with hostile native tribesmen within hours of being washed ashore, and a hellish confinement in a rickety longboat as they tried, without success, to escape the fearsome coast. Eventually captured by desert nomads and sold into slavery, Riley and his men were dragged along on an insane journey through the bone-dry heart of the Sahara - a region unknown to Westerners. Along the way the Americans would encounter everything that could possibly test them: barbarism, murder, starvation, plagues of locusts, death, sandstorms that lasted for days, dehydration, and hostile tribes that roamed the desert on armies of camels. They would discover ancient cities and secret oases. They would also discover a surprising bond between a Muslim trader and an American sea captain, men who began as strangers, were forced to become allies in order to survive, and, in the tempering heat of the desert, became friends - even as the captain hatched a daring betrayal in order to save his men.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Washington Post

… Skeletons is a page-turner, replete with gruesome details about thirst, a diet of dried locusts and animal bone marrow, relentless exposure to the sun and the changes in bodily functions that result. King's plot is right out of Homer: Will the stalwart captain and his mates ever see home again? … Even armchair adventurers satiated with exotic travelogues will appreciate heroism amid adversity in this fast-paced account of slow torture -- and an almost-happy ending. — Grace Lichtenstein

Publishers Weekly

When the American cargo ship Commerce ran aground on the northwestern shores of Africa in 1815 along with its crew of 12 Connecticut-based sailors, the misfortunes that befell them came fast and hard, from enslavement to reality-bending bouts of dehydration. King's aggressively researched account of the crew's once-famous ordeal reads like historical fiction, with unbelievable stories of the seamen's endurance of heat stroke, starvation and cruelty by their Saharan slavers. King (Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed), who went to Africa and, on camel and foot, retraced parts of the sailors' journey, succeeds brilliantly at making the now familiar sandscape seem as imposing and new as it must have been to the sailors. Every dromedary step thuds out from the pages with its punishing awkwardness, and each drop of brackish found water reprieves and tortures with its perpetual insufficiency. King's leisurely prose style rounds out the drama with well-parceled-out bits of context, such as the haggling barter culture of the Saharan nomadic Arabs and the geological history of Western Africa's coastline. Zahara (King's use of older and/or phonetic spellings helps evoke the foreignness of the time and place) impresses with its pacing, thoroughness and empathy for the plight of a dozen sailors heaved smack-hard into an unknown tribalism. By the time the surviving crew members make it back to their side of civilization, reader and protagonist alike are challenged by new ways of understanding culture clash, slavery and the place of Islam in the social fabric of desert-dwelling peoples. Maps, illus. (Feb. 16) Forecast: A major media campaign, including ads in the New York Times Book Review, USA Today and Time; radio and TV interviews; and a six-city author tour will ignite interest in this captivating adventure tale. The book has earned advance praise from Nathaniel Philbrick (In the Heart of the Sea) and Doug Stanton (In Harm's Way). Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In 1815, 12 men boarded the merchant ship Commerce in Connecticut, bound for the Cape Verde Islands after a brief stopover in Gibraltar. Weather and unfamiliar surroundings, however, caused the ship to wreck on the inhospitable coast of what is now Mauritania. Taken as slaves by regional nomads and separated (some never to be seen again), the dozen sailors endured great hardships. King (Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed) rivets with this account of Captain Riley's nine weeks of captivity: traveling inland nearly 800 miles, then back west, and finally north to Morocco, where he was luckily ransomed by an American consul. Referencing Riley's journals and those of crewman Robbin (which became best sellers in their day), King writes an astoundingly researched treatise on Islamic customs, nomadic life, and desert natural history, as well as detailed descriptions of dehydration, starvation, and caloric intake. Included are an 85-title bibliography, detailed maps of the northwest coast of Mauritania and Morocco, a glossary of Arabic terms, and wonderful photographs of King's own trip as he retraced Captain Riley's journey of enslavement. A wonderful, inspiring story of humankind's will to survive in spite of inhospitable conditions and inhumane treatment, this work should be in all public libraries, maritime libraries, and African collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/03.]-Jim Thorsen, Weaverville, NC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews