Salt and steel

The latest volume by this outstanding American naval writer is both a collection of essays and the closest thing to autobiography Captain Beach is likely ever to give us. He writes with his usual freshness, grace, compassion, and well-informed opinions on his own life, his father's career, Admiral Rickover (who was indispensable to the nuclear propulsion program but impossible to deal with on the personal level) and the intrigues that cost him his promotion to rear admiral, and the role of the U.S. Navy in the twenty-first century, concerning which he also suggests reforms. Along the way, he tells anecdotes about his marriage of more than 50 years, his wartime service, the origins of several of his novels and of the characters in them, and the complexities of having the nuclear submarine Nautilus christened by Mamie Eisenhower. If this should be Beach's last book, it fittingly concludes his career as writer and seafarer. We can most sincerely say, "Sailor, rest your oar."