Kenosha’s Michael Schumacher began as a biographer of artists such as Francis Ford Coppola and Eric Clapton, but developed a side career as chronicler of Great Lakes maritime disasters. In November’s Fury, Schumacher investigates a catastrophic gale that bore down on the lakes a century ago, destroying dozens of ships and boats and drowning more than 200 sailors. A masterful storyteller, Schumacher brings the human actors alive in the context of nature and society. His vivid descriptions of mountains of heaving water, violent choppy waves and winds lashing the ships with ice place the reader’s imagination in harm’s way of the storm.
