Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780593686034)

Vendor: Matthew Gavin Frank
Product type: Books
Format: Paperback
$20.00
$20.00
$20.00
Subtotal: $20.00
WR Book House

Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines

$20.00

Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines

$20.00
Format: Paperback
Description
Description
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A fascinating foray into the world of deep-sea divers, the obsession and madness that oceans inspire in us, and the story of submarine inventor Peter Madsen's murder of journalist Kim Wall

Submersed begins with an investigation into the beguiling subculture of DIY submersible obsessives: men and women--but mostly men--who are so compelled to sink into the deep sea that they become amateur backyard submarine-builders. Should they succeed in fashioning a craft in their garage or driveway and set sail, they do so at great personal risk--as the 2023 fatal implosion of OceanGate's much more highly funded sub, Titan, proved to the world.

Matthew Gavin Frank explores the origins of the human compulsion to sink to depth, from the diving bells of Aristotle and Alexander the Great to the Confederate H. L. Hunley, which became the first submersible to sink an enemy warship before itself being sunk during the Civil War. The deeper he plunges, however, the more the obsession seems to dovetail with more threatening traits. Following the grisly murder of journalist Kim Wall at the hands of eccentric entrepreneur Peter Madsen aboard his DIY midget submarine, Frank finds himself reckoning with obsession's darkest extremes.

Weaving together elements of true crime, the strange history of the submarine, the mythology of the deep sea, and the physical and mental side effects of sinking to great depth, Frank attempts to get to the bottom of this niche compulsion to chase the extreme in our planet's bodies of water and in our own bodies. What he comes to discover, and interrogate, are the odd and unexpected overlaps between the unquenchable human desire to descend into deep water, and a penchant for unspeakable violence.

Author: Matthew Gavin Frank
ISBN-10: 0593686039
ISBN-13: 9780593686034
Publisher: Vintage
Language: English
Published: 10/20/2026
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.54lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.19w x 0.63d
By Matthew Gavin Frank
By Matthew Gavin Frank
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MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK is the author of the nonfiction books Flight of the Diamond Smugglers, The Mad Feast, Preparing the Ghost, Pot Farm, and Barolo, as well as the poetry books The Morrow Plots, Warranty in Zulu, and Sagittarius Agitprop. His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Guernica, The New Republic, Iowa Review, Salon, Conjunctions, The Believer, and the Best Travel Writing and Best Food Writing anthologies. He's a professor of creative writing in the Masters of Fine Arts Program at Northern Michigan University, where he is also the Nonfiction/Hybrids Editor of the literary magazine, Passages North.

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