The Poseidon Adventure is a 1969 novel by Paul Gallico. It concerns the capsizing of a luxurious ocean liner by a freak wave and the desperate struggles of a handful of survivors to reach the 'top' (now the bottom of the hull) of the liner before it sinks. Paul Gallico, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1937 Paul William Gallico (July 26, 1897-July 15, 1976) was a fabulously successful U.S. novelist and short story writer. ... Capsizing refers to when a boat is inverted such that the bottom of the boat is on top. ... A hull is: the outer covering of a fruit or vegetable, may also be called a husk the body or frame of a ship; see hull (ship) Several places in the world are called Hull: Kingston upon Hull - a city in England usually referred to as simply Hull. ...

Plot summary

The plot centers around the S.S. Poseidon, a luxury liner from the golden age of travel, on its final voyage before the scrapyard. On the day after Christmas, it is overturned by a rogue wave, caused by an underwater earthquake, trapping all inside. Starting from an upper deck, a preacher, Reverand Frank "Buzz" Scott, leads a small group of often unwilling followers towards the bottom of the ship, trying to avoid the rising water level and other such hazards. The Draupner wave, a single giant wave measured on New Years Day 1995, finally confirmed the existence of freak waves, which had previously been considered near-mythical Freak waves, also known as rogue waves or monster waves, are relatively large and spontaneous ocean surface waves which can sink even...

And so begins an epic journey into the ship, the lives of the survivors, and life, humanity, basic instincts, and the perseverance of mankind itself.

While in the overturned ballroom, the young Reverand, his mistress and English bookkeeper Mary Kinsale, an injured waiter named Acres, NYPD detective Mike Rogo, his beautiful, rascist, foul-mouthed, ex-Hollywood starlet, ex-Broadway star, and ex-prostitute wife Linda, quiet haberdasher James Martin, San Franciscan pretty boy bachelor Hubie Miller, Detroit car company vice-president Richard Shelby, his stunning but resentful wife Jane, his maturing 17 year old daughter Susan, his energetic 10 year old son Robin, retired delicatessen owner Manny Rosen, his obese and frightened wife Belle, raging alcoholic Tony "The Beamer" Bates, and his young and in love girlfriend Pamela Reid, use a metal Christmas tree to ascend to the kitchen.

After the other passengers in the ballroom drown in a frenzy, the rag-tag group ventures through the obliterated and body ridden kitchen. Acres decides to stay behind to help others, and is never seen again. After climbing two treacherous upside-down, staircases, they meet up with Nona "Nonnie" Parry, a can-can dancer from the ships entertainment group The Gresham Girls.

They then come upon "Broadway", a lengthy corridor that runs from the bow of the ship to the stern. The posse breaks for a while whilst they look for supplies. Robin ventures off to find the bathroom, The Beamer and Pamela find the liquor cabinet, and Jane Shelby goes beserk on her husband. When a boiler suddenly explodes, a panicking stampede of crew members run towards the stern, all being either trampled or killed by a large pit where a staircase used to be. Panicking, the group goes in search of Tony, Pamela and Robin.

Mike Rogo finds The Beamer utterly intoxicated, and Pamela refuses to leave him. Hubie Miller disappears without a trace. While searching for Robin, Susan is brutally raped by a teenage crew member who was afraid to die a virgin. Susan talks with the boy, and grows to like him. In a panic, the boy runs off and falls through a colossal hole and drowns. Susan rejoins the group and tells them nothing of what happened.

After an intese search, they make the painful decision that Robin must be left behind. The Reverand, having found a Turkish coal-hand, guides them through Broadway to the stern. They find the corridor to the engine room, which is completely submerged. The Reverand decides to swim through with a rope to connect to the other side, and gets trapped by a piece of sheet-metal. Belle Rosen, a former W.S.A. champion, saves the Reverand and helps him to the other side. On the other side, they find the engine room, or "Hell" as Mr. Martin calls it.

They take this time to rest, in which time Linda Rogo makes a move on the Reverand. Afterward they see the way out, 3 decks up on top off a fractured steel wall they call "Mount Poseidon". On the trip up Linda Rogo accidently falls to her death after being impaled upon a piece of sharp steel shrapnel. Another explosion rocks the ship, and the Reverand, in an insane rage, denounces God and commits suicide. Mary Kinsale screams in grief and confesses that they were to be married. The grieving Mike Rogo takes charge of the group and they find their way into a small tunnel where the steel hull is the thinnest. After hours of waiting, they are finally rescued, but Belle Rosen has a heart attack and dies before they can reach her. Once on top of the ship, the survivors see another group at the head of the ship with at least 30 people.

Taken back to a aircraft carrier in lifeboats, they see The Beamer and Pamela who apparently survived. Aboard the carrier, they watch as the Poseidon sinks and Jane Shelby silently grives the loss of her son, finally giving up hope. The group goes their separate ways, Mary Kinsale and Nonnie on a ship back to England, Mike Rogo, Manny Rosen, Dick, Jane and Susan Shelby back to New York, and the Turk back to Turkey. The novel ends with Susan dreaming of going to Australia to see the boy-who-raped-her's parents, and wishing that she was pregnant with his child so his life wouldn't have been meaningless and he would have a legacy, like the one Acres, Linda, Belle, and Robin would never get.

Review

The book attracted little attention at the time of its first publication. The New York Times gave it a one-paragraph review, noting that "Mr. Gallico collects a Grand Hotel (a reference to the 1930 Vicki Baum novel) full of shipboard dossiers. These interlocking histories may be damp with sentimentality as well as brine—but the author's skill as a storyteller invests them with enough suspense to last the desperate journey." 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Hedwig (Vicki) Baum (January 24, 1888 - August 29, 1960) was an Austrian writer. ... Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe; title page of 1719 newspaper edition A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended fictional narrative in prose. ...

In the spring of 2006, Penguin Publishing was set to re-release The Poseidon Adventure in paperback and audio CD formats, in anticipation of Warner Bros' re-telling of the disaster story.

Film adaptations

• The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
• Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979)
• The Poseidon Adventure (2005)
• Poseidon (2006)

The Poseidon Adventure is a 1972 action/adventure/disaster film based on a novel by Paul Gallico. ... 1979 Sequel to The Poseidon Adventure that follows a salvage crew and a band of terrorists that board the Poseidon looking for gold and a lost shipment of plutonium. ... The Poseidon Adventure is a 2005 action and adventure film based on a novel by Paul Gallico. ... Poseidon is a movie remake of the classic disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, based on the novel by Paul Gallico. ...

See also

• RMS Titanic
• RMS Lusitania
• SS Andrea Doria