Brandon Presser

The book was disappointing. It reads like a cross between a 2-star rating on Tripadvisor and historical fiction. Chapters in the present describe the conditions he found on Pitcairn Island:
"It was like a trailer park at the end of the world."
He also describes the inhabitants as people who were not just wary of outsiders, but unwelcoming and rude.
The chapters that tell the history of the mutineers include made-up dialogue regarding events that were never documented in primary sources.
Although the author writes that "secrets are like water- they seep into the crevices and cracks, every cleft and fissure. They fill holes and sink even the mightiest of galleons. The truth always leaks out. I know this to be an inevitability."
Well, the author never gets to the truth. He uses speculation and downright fiction to write what he says is "history".… (meer)

I often daydream of living on a distant and remote island, so I was very excited to pick up this library book, described as a nonfiction account of the Bounty mutiny, and the story of the life afterwards of the mutineers on remote Pitcairn Island. This account of the Bounty mutiny, and of what happened to the mutineers afterwards, as they ultimately made their way to the then-uninhabited Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific where their descendants still live today. is interspersed with an account of a visit by the author to Pitcairn Island in the present day, where the islanders are still recovering from the notoriety brought upon them by criminal charges of pedophiliac sex practices. I knew very little about the Bounty mutiny (other than what I gleaned from the Marlon Brando movie) which is why I wanted to read this book, and why I kept reading it even when I found it to be one of the worst non-fiction books I have ever read, and I wanted to throw it across the room. I didn't, and I read through until the end, though perhaps I should have stuck with what I learned from Marlon.

The overriding problem for me was that the author basically attempted to "novelize" the account, and let his imagination run wild. There were so many eye-rolling moments I lost track, ranging from sailors' masturbating as they watched young Samoan girls frolicking in the water, to the thoughts of those girls during sex, to the thoughts of a mutineer as he lay dying from an ax attack, to which way his blood spurted when he was axed, etc. etc.

A few quotes from Amazon reviews should suffice:
"Part Harlequin Romance, part speculation, mixed with a touch of outright porn...."
"Too much focus on an admittedly clever reimagining....'
"Lurid sexual scenes were unnecessary...." etc. etc.

After finishing the book, I took the further step of reading through some of the author's "Notes on References" to see if there was any justification for marketing this book as a serious nonfiction account. In these notes he states:

"In order to properly flesh out a more robust version of the island's settlement and the eighteen years of solitude that followed, I have incorporated non-Western methods of research and sources, like tapping into the rich oral Polynesian culture.... I have interviewed psychologists and religious scholars to better elucidate the intentions of the primary characters in order to more properly recast this history as a cogent sequence of a rational (and sometimes irrational) actions, rather than an oversimplified laundry list of casualties."

Well. Maybe. But I'm not convinced that this book deserves to be called a history.

1 star

I will note for my own reference that Caroline Alexander's book The Bounty was recommended by some of the Amazon reviewers, and I may look for that, since she is an author I am familiar with and would trust.… (meer)

The Far Land: 200 Years of Murder, Mania, and Mutiny in the South Pacific by Brandon Presser is a very highly recommended reexamination of the story of the HMS Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions.

In 1790 the mutineers of the HMS Bounty settled on the South Pacific island of Pitcairn. In 1808, an American merchant ship came upon the uncharted island in the South Pacific. "Seven generations later, the island’s diabolical past still looms over its 48 residents; descendants of the original mutineers, marooned like modern castaways. Only a rusty cargo ship connects Pitcairn with the rest of the world, just four times a year." In 2018, travel writer and author Brandon Presser took the freighter Pitcairn to live among the present day two clans on the island who are bound by circumstance and secrets. While on the island, he collected the details of Pitcairn’s full story.

The story of mutiny of the Bounty has been told through books and films numerous times. Presser makes it clear that the mutiny was only the prologue to the actual dramatic events that occurred on the island. The Far Land adds to the collection with both chapters focusing on the historical events and chapters told through a contemporary personal narrative. He recounts in detail the original mutiny and settling of Pitcairn and his 2018 visit to meet the islands 48 inhabitants. Most of the current residents are descendants of the mutineers.

Presser has visited over 130 countries and is an experienced travel writer who can look beyond the novelty of an experience and dig deeper into the real story behind the facade. He uncovers a tale of power, tribalism, obsession, paranoia, and betrayal. Presser does an excellent job presenting the exhaustive research he undertook. References and a select bibliography are included. This is a well-written, great choice for anyone interested in Pitcairn's history and its current inhabitants.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of PublicAffairs Books.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2022/02/the-far-land.html… (meer)

In The Far Land travel writer Brandon Presser turns to the story of the HMS Bounty and it’s mutineers, who escaped to and settled the remote Pitcairn Island - the Far Land. The book is a dual telling of the mutineers' story, along with the author’s own present day travel tale of Pitcairn Island.

The chapters devoted to Presser’s 2018 trip to Pitcairn are the most readable. Pitcairn is one of the remotest inhabited places in the world. Located in the Pacific Ocean midway between Australia and Cape Horn, it’s only scheduled transport is a freighter that carries supplies and passengers four times a year to the island.

The island has only 48 full time inhabitants, all descendents of the Bounty mutineers. Pitcairn is less than 2 square miles, so Presser is able to see most of it while there. There are no stores or hotels, given it’s remoteness, so he is a guest in a “family stay” arrangement. He splits his stay between the two family groupings (they call themselves “piles”), the Christians and the Warrens.

While staying with the Warrens he learns that a sizable number of Bounty descendents live on Norfolk Island, almost 4000 miles away, where they were relocated by the British government in the 1850s. Later in the book he ventures to Norfolk to visit the Bounty descendents there.

Interspersed through his travel narrative are chapters covering the Bounty mutiny, the settling of Pitcairn, and the murder and mania that followed. I didn’t enjoy these chapters as much. Done as narrative nonfiction, I found them uneven, and the writing wasn’t as inspired or engaging as in the travel chapters. Even so, any set of stories that includes “Massacre Day” as a plot point will hold your attention.

The Bounty set out to deliver breadfruit trees from Tahiti to the Caribbean as food for slaves on British sugar plantations. The ship and it’s crew spent several months in Tahiti, and many of the men fell in love with the island and its women, and were not looking forward to the long return voyage.

The Bounty’s captain, William Bligh, was not an easy man to get along with or serve under. While the immediate cause has been lost to history, something set off his first mate Fletcher Christian on the 1789 return trip. He and a group of his fellows forced Bligh and those loyal to him into a life boat and set them adrift.

Now on the run in the Bounty, Christian and his men returned to Tahiti where some opted to stay. The rest, along with the Tahitian women they had fallen for (and a few Tahitian men) left in the Bounty. They decided to settle on Pitcairn, as it’s remoteness made it the least likely place the British Navy would find them. Unfortunately it did not turn out to be the paradise they imagined.

The story of the Bounty sailors and the Tahitians who settled Pitcairn, and then mostly lost themselves to alcohol, animosities and murder, has long fascinated outsiders. It’s been the basis of several books and at least three movies.

In this book, Presser has done his research to separate fact from Hollywood fiction. It’s a worthwhile, but uneven read. I give The Far Land Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

NOTE: I received an advanced copy from NetGalley and PublicAffairs. I am voluntarily providing this review. The book will be publicly available on March 8, 2022.… (meer)