Gentleman Overboard by Herbert Clyde Lewis

Gentleman Overboard by Herbert Clyde Lewis is a black comedy published in 1937 to mediocre acclaim. It might have been forgotten if not for an odd twist of fate which made it a cult classic today.

Henry Preston Standish was a Wall Street banker, unsure why he was melancholy. The joy of work eluded him, and his four rooms overlooking Central Park with his wife and two children felt like a prison.

He decided to go to Hawaii and see the sunsets.

By chance, he returns on the S.S. Arabella, a freighter with room for eight passengers, departing every three weeks from Honolulu to Panama. He was having a wonderful time, and had lost his raspy smoker's cough to the balmy calm air.

Wandering the decks one morning, he accidentally falls overboard into the Pacific Ocean. It was an unmannerly thing to do. Men of his class falling off ships, it just was not done. Falling off a ship causes people a lot of bother; lowering a lifeboat creates a spectacle. Gentlemen do not shout "Man Overboard", so his call was simply spoken as the Arabella proceeded at ten knots. From this viewpoint, the Arabella looked dainty.

By the time the Captain is notified, it may be too late. In the thirteen days of the journey so far, only one other freighter had been spotted. As the hours go by, he recalls his life of joining the correct clubs and voting carefully, patiently treads water, struggling to stay afloat. He removes his cumbersome clothes; the Arabella now completely out of sight.

Calm water as far as you can see with the sky above him. This is his world now.

This is a tragic comedy of those who find themselves isolated. He slowly releases his societal norms and inhibitions, coming to grips with his fate. He had heard his whole life would pass before his eyes, but he could not conjure a single moment. Looking back, the spectre of existential loneliness seemed always with him, and perhaps is all he has left.

This was the first novel of Lewis, a reporter who wrote two other books (Spring Offensive and Season's Greetings), before writing for Hollywood (the Christmas classic It Happened On 5th Avenue). A victim of the Hollywood blacklist, he died of a heart attack at just 41 in 1950. This may have slipped away in time, if not for an old Time magazine review discovered in 2009 by the Neglected Books website: "His hair-raising little tour-de-force is more effective for being so quietly, matter-of-factly written."

Out of print for 70 years, this is now widely available inprint, eBook, and audio.

1937 / Tradeback / 156 pages