Current Affairs

Just after midnight on May 29, 1914, the Empress of Ireland sank in the St. Lawrence River, with a loss of 836 passengers, four more than had died on the Titanic two years earlier. Almost everyone has heard of the Titanic, but how many have heard of the Empress of Ireland? Eve Lazarus hadn’t before she began her research, which she embarked on only because of a request from someone fascinated by the story of Gordon Davidson, a survivor who supposedly swam six and a half kilometres to shore from the sinking ship.

Impossible, said the experts. And although Davidson’s swim became legendary, Lazarus discovered that the reality was less dramatic. The graduate student from Union, Ontario, actually swam to a lifeboat and thus was eventually able to continue his journey to England to complete his doctorate in history — even if his notes went down with the ship. Davidson’s life is perhaps the most interesting in Lazarus’s Beneath Dark...