In The Weyter, I got very close to the essence of each of these people. And one of the things that fascinated me about them was that each had their own very distinctive ambitions and dreams. They were gravitating toward John Bokely, the gunner who on a ship could have become a captain because he wasn't from the aristocracy. So there's a genuine class struggle, even if it's not referred to in those terms on the island.
David Grann is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His new book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.
“I became very haunted by the stories that [nations] don't tell. Nations and empires preserve their powers not only by the stories they tell, but also by the stories they leave out. … Early in my career, if I came across the silences in a story, I might not have highlighted them, because I thought, Well, there's nothing to tell there. And now I try to let the silences speak.”
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