Sterling Hayden Books

This book is as convoluted as its author. It maintains a flow of semi-stream-of-consciousness from start to finish, and what emerges are the memoirs of a man whose love of seafaring and considerable self-deprecation ("self-loathing" is a little too strong a term) has brought him to a sea voyage to Tahiti with a pick-up crew and his four children in violation of a court order. Hayden's story is it's own animal, going from the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine, to the forests of Yugoslavia, to courtrooms and congressional chambers and movie sets and finally to the high seas and South Pacific islands with a strain of fatalism and regret throughout. It should make for a downer of a read; instead, I found myself staying up and turning the pages to see what happened next. A great book.

I would like to add something to the excellent and perceptive reviews above. What came through so strongly is that life is messy, yet Hayden's remarkable self awareness didn't seem to help him. This is a facinating look inside a big life. I found it valuable.

I believe it was 1959 and I had just returned from a month's cruise to the Tuamotus and Marquesas islands on the copra schooner Charlotte Donald. I was sitting at a table on the quay in front of the Hotel Le Grand when the schooner first appeared off Papeete. It sailed in smartly, picked up the Pilot, and docked stern first, as was the custom, at the concrete quay. The name "Wanderer" was nicely affixed to her transom. I lived in District Punavia, kilometer thirteen, next to Paul Gauguin's old home by the Thompsons. Several weeks later I would board the Wanderer after meeting her skipper at a party to buy some of the 16mm color film he had for sale. He was courteous, the children were well mannered, the library below was impressive, and his ship was clean and appeared to be able to sail on a minute's notice. We chatted for some time and he recounted some stories of his trip. We knew the same haunts in coastal California. We met a couple of more times at functions on the island. He seemed to be a cheerful and courteous person. He was a large man and deep voiced and I knew he was an actor, but that's about all I knew. Not long ago I had written my autobiography and had made a small mentioned of the encounter and the film. A friend who read my book asked if I had read Hayden's biography, which I hadn't. He suggested I do so, and last month I ordered it from Amazon. The book was disheartening for me to read. While he and I had many similarities in our lives (I wasn't an actor) and had been to many of the same places, we came away with massively different reactions. Mr. Hayden is a good writer and tells, especially about his life at sea, in an authentic style that kept me reading. I don't know if I would have finished if there weren't the similarity of our experiences. The sparse interjection of the third person voice over his normal narrative of first person was effectively used. The book and his life stand on their own merits and I make no judgment. He was first and foremost a seafaring man of unusual talents, and I wish I had visited him in the States in our later years. Mr. Hayden, you steered the course you wanted in recounting the voyages of your life. That's about all most of us could ask for. Rest in peace.

PS:
Spike Africa, his mate, came as a surprise, or else I had forgotten. Skip ahead twenty years and I chartered the "Spike Africa", a 70 foot schooner out of Newport Beach California somewhere around 1979 for a company off-site (the exact thing Hayden despised ... sorry). Bob Sloan built and then christened the boat "Spike Africa". The California yachting community all knew of Spike Africa the man, as a legend in the Pacific ocean, although I never knew any details of the legend.

A griping story that reads like fiction. Hayden is a "one of a kind" spirit that lives life to the fullest. He wants good things for the world and lives up to his character of being an iconoclast. A great read for sailors or romantics who dream of being before the mast and finding lifes' meaning out on the sea.

Hayden was one of those force of nature types who, sadly don't exist in sufficient quantities to make the world a really interesting place. In this book, he tells his life story, while telling the story of his last voyage on the 100 foot schooner, Wanderer. His prose is lovely and has the rythm of the sea; like other great works of sea literature (like Moby Dick). I'll give a high point of his prose before I complain:

"What does a man need ---really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in --and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all --in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where then lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be, bankruptcy of purse of bankrutpcy of life?"

Hayden was a child of the depression who worked his way out of bad circumstances by a combination of stubbornness, physique and leadership skill. He is eventually given a job a an actor, after being spotted by the media during a sailboat race in Glocester. He abandons this due to a love affair with an actress who fancies herself concerned with serious social issues. He joins the war and does OSS/CIA type operations in maritime support of partisans in Yugoslavia. He returns to his acting. Makes many movies. Marries an evil shrew. Divorces. Gets the kids. Chucks it all for a trip to Tahiti in his 100 foot yacht. All this is well and good, but the man reveals too much about himself. His self loathing isn't interesting. It is certainly not edifying, and though he seems to abundantly pity himself, I cannot feel sorry for him. The man had many fine opportunities. He had fine charachter qualities; I admire the fact that he chucked it all, just because he didn't like it. But he was not a fine man: he was petty and ugly -he couldn't even treat his own widowed mother decently, and though his ex wife was probably no better, I rather doubt as being around such a tormented spirit was good for his kids. In that way, he is a tragic figure; all the more tragic because he doesn't seem to realize it himself. It is no suprise he never did much with himself after he wrote the book. I don't know this to be true, but I suspect he drown himself and his self-loathing in booze.

Still, it is a beautifully written book. In a way, the book is his triumph over it all. It is doubtless a finer thing than any of the movies he made, and his great "the heck with it all" dramatic gesture is probably better than any he made on camera. I know I will read the book again. Perhaps when I am older I will think differently of Captain Hayden. Amusingly, a visit to Sausalito revealed that I had known Hayden as the demented General Jack D. Ripper in "Dr. Strangelove."

Oh, what a help this book would have been when I was a library director. It's tough trying to convey to city commissioners, city managers and other funding entities what the value is for library services. (VA)
"This book is designed to serve large to medium-sized public libraries, gives librarians the tools to conduct a defensible and credible cost-benefit analysis (CBA). This hands-on reference covers the economic basics with librarian-friendly terms and examples, preparing library leaders to collaborate with economist-consultants." (summary by South TX Library System)
Here's what the book covers:
1. Introduction to Cost-Benefit Analysis for Public Libraries
2. Cost-Benefit Analysis Fundamentals
3. Important Considerations Before Commissioning a CBA Study
4. Preparing to Measure Benefits
5. Measuring Library Benefits: Identifying and Sampling Library Users
6. Measuring Library Benefits: Preparing the Survey Instruments
7. Measuring Library Costs
8. Measuring Return to Taxpayer and Donor Investment in Your Library
9. Wrapping Up Your Study: Communicating Your CBA Findings
10. Conclusions: Evaluating What Your CBA Study Accomplished
Appendix A. Measuring Consumer Surplus by Using Contingent Market Purchases or Rentals of Substitute Goods: A Technical Appendix for Economists
Appendix B. Sampling Cardholders
Appendix C. Survey Instruments
Appendix D. Calculating and Reporting Survey Response Rates
Appendix E. Technical Insights for the Project Consultants
Glossary
Bibliography

Written by the research team of Donald S. Elliot, Glen E. Holt, Sterling W. Hayden and Leslie Edmonds Holt, who spent more than a decade developing, testing, and refining their methodologies, Measuring Your Library's Value: How To Do a Cost-Benefit Analysis for Your Public Library is a straightforward guide for any librarian under pressure to quantify the value of benefits provided to the public. Written in librarian-friendly terminology, chapters cover "Important Considerations Before Commissioning a Cost-Benefit Analysis Study", "Measuring Library Benefits: Identifying and Sampling Library Users", "Preparing the Survey Instruments", "Measuring Return to Taxpayer and Donor Investment in the Library", and much more. Step-by-step instructions, examples, charts, walkthroughs of mathematical calculations and their principles, numerous appendices including sample survey forms, and much more round out this first-rate guide for any library professional especially in today's era of tightening budgets and higher demands of accountability from public services.

one of the very best sea faring yarns i have read.
i still have the paperback from the late seventies
as well as the hardcover of wanderer.
well worth reading.

This is one of the finest novels of the sea I've ever read. I wouldn't recommend it to the gentle-hearted, but if you can handle graphic descriptions of life in a foc'sle before the Seaman's Act, I highly recommend it. If you've read it, I also recommend Eric Newby's "Learning The Ropes", for his photographs of life on a big steel windjammer.

While reading this huge book, it is easy to imagine Sterling doing the research. First, he would select the year for his opus. 1896 would seem like a good choice, because it was at the end of the tall ships when steam was supplanting sail, and Hayden was a lover of the ships (see his only other book, his autobiography: Wanderer). After he selected the year, he would go to a really good library and start reading the daily newspapers for 1896, jotting down events, dates, names and places. Then having compiled all his data, he would begin to compose this bestselling novel. The main focus of the book is the maiden voyage of "Neptune's Car" from Maine around the Horn to San Francisco. He has peopled the crew with very interesting and compelling characters, from the hard-driving, yet fair-minded Captain Irons Saul Pendelton, to the brutish first mate Otto Lassiter, to shipmates Harwar the Wrecker, Carmack the Anarch, a cast-a-way plucked from a deserted isle, and the ship's lone passenger MacLeod. Hayden takes the time to develop each of these characters and many others, providing them with a past, and a present, and no hope for the future. As the trip progresses, we get to know each of them personally as we learn of the extraordinarily hard life of the seaman and the futile and dangerous attempts to unionize and improve their lot. Meanwhile, we also follow another excursion: The Neptune Car's owner, Banning Butler Blanchard, sends his daughter and her ne'er-do-well husband with other socialites of the era on a pleasure cruise to Japan to witness a total solar eclipse. The juxtaposition of these two journeys gives an indepth look at the strong class distinctions of the day: the poor working stiff and the idle rich. Meanwhile, Blanchard himself is involved in that year's heated Presidential conflict. He goes to the Democratic Presidential convention in Chicago where the battle rages over whether America should use the gold or silver standard. Again, Hayden makes sure we understand all of the factors that lead to rioting in the streets and over-the-top rallies. And there are interesting sub-plots galore, each character driven, each fitting into the tapestry of the novel like tightly-fitting puzzle pieces. Hayden's strong descriptive abilities make us feel part of every scene, whether it be in the forecastle, on a Hawaiian beach, or a crowded convention hall floor. This is a two-fisted, hard drinking, passion-filled novel and makes me wish that Hayden had written other books. Why only four stars? The book leads us to an anticipated violent climax that just fizzles away on the very last pages. But until then, I could not have asked for more.

I'm glad to see that other reviewers thought as much of this book as I do. As the title states, this book is a novel of 1896. The year 1896 is pivotal (as is every other year, every other day, every other moment)in this country's history. Hayden creates a tableau of this pivotal time which surrounds and captures and includes the reader. He highlights the vast differences between the rich and the poor. He paints the east coast and the west coast; the nascent labor movement and the robber barons; American pride and American comtempt for fellow Americans. This book is a wonderful historical novel and certainly ranks in stature with historical novels by Dos Passos and Vidal.

As the title also states, this book is about a voyage; rather, many voyages. The book focuses on the voyage of the 'Neptune's Car', a large barque on a voyage from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn. The barque's voyage is contrasted with the comfortably posh voyage of the Cuttings of New York by private train car and crewed yacht to observe the eclipse of the sun in the northwestern Pacific. The characters are vivid and visceral. Like cross waves in a big swell the voyages of the individuals are traced and examined. Their actions are believable and their interactions sometimes explode like the storms around Cape Horn.

This book is nothing short of wonderful. It is a sea story, an American story, a compelling historical novel, and a timeless story of human voyages and ships that pass in the night.

Sterling Hayden is an excellent writer - especially when he is writing about subjects with which he has a lot of familiarity. His descriptions of both sailing and heavy drinking are memorable. This is one novel which will be hard to forget.

....poignant,funny,suspenseful,loving story of Capt. Sharps' 'oneness' with the sea,a downeaster with a wry smile and a sixth sense for getting out of some darn close calls , tenacious with a huge heart....but then again I love sailing !!!!

Reading this book started me on the search for others like it. Recently, I picked up Sailing Ships of New England by George Francis Dow. If you're interested in this sort of thing, I highly recommend it. It's full of great illustrations and makes for a great follow-up to Down to the Sea.