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thechemicaldetective's review
5.0
The story of the aftermath of the Piper Alpha disaster is told in two voices and shifting timelines.
Professor Caroline Fraser, Carrie, is a professor of geology travelling to Aberdeen, the city of her birth and the place where Marcus, her estranged father, still lives and drinks.
Marcus is a Piper Alpha survivor.
Marcus remembers looking up at the rig after saving himself by jumping into the sea.
‘And there is Piper Alpha, from sea level to helideck an inferno, a vent into hell opened in the North Sea, all that rage flaring out, gas from the risers still burning, burning, more and more explosions. There are men still on it, men still in the water. Men jumping from the helideck, a hundred and eighty feet up. Hundreds of men fighting for life.’
Growing up with bickering parents, a surgeon and a geologist locked in a career battle, Carrie doesn’t have the easiest childhood. A hint of magical realism – young Carrie’s encounter with Pele, goddess of volcanoes – turns out to be a fever dream brought on by neglectful parenting. It’s not only Marcus’s post-traumatic stress disorder that challenges his marriage. However, his refusal to seek help is the final straw. Suddenly teenage Carrie is left to care for her damaged father alone.
The main characters are portrayed in all their messy complexity. The portraits of Ashley, Carrie’s girlfriend and Isobel, Marcus’s second wife, are more gently drawn. The new partners learn to cope with Marcus’s addiction and the fallout that has scarred his daughter. There are no easy answers or trite solutions, but the story is written with warmth and humanity.
This is not a book about process safety or accident prevention; it doesn’t cover the causes of the 1988 Piper Alpha accident, nor the response of the regulators and industry. This is a work of fiction exploring the effect of a workplace accident on friends and families: mental health injuries that are not reflected in the blunt statistics.
In the Shadow of Piper Alpha is a beautifully constructed, thought-provoking novel which takes us on two journeys. One is geographical – from Korea to Scotland through the fascinating geology of Japan, New Zealand, and Hawaii. The second is emotional – ripples of survivor guilt threaten a tsunami of pain until honesty, compassion, and compromise provide a breakwater of hope.
(Extracted from my review for 'The Chemical Engineer' Magazine June 2023)
Professor Caroline Fraser, Carrie, is a professor of geology travelling to Aberdeen, the city of her birth and the place where Marcus, her estranged father, still lives and drinks.
Marcus is a Piper Alpha survivor.
Marcus remembers looking up at the rig after saving himself by jumping into the sea.
‘And there is Piper Alpha, from sea level to helideck an inferno, a vent into hell opened in the North Sea, all that rage flaring out, gas from the risers still burning, burning, more and more explosions. There are men still on it, men still in the water. Men jumping from the helideck, a hundred and eighty feet up. Hundreds of men fighting for life.’
Growing up with bickering parents, a surgeon and a geologist locked in a career battle, Carrie doesn’t have the easiest childhood. A hint of magical realism – young Carrie’s encounter with Pele, goddess of volcanoes – turns out to be a fever dream brought on by neglectful parenting. It’s not only Marcus’s post-traumatic stress disorder that challenges his marriage. However, his refusal to seek help is the final straw. Suddenly teenage Carrie is left to care for her damaged father alone.
The main characters are portrayed in all their messy complexity. The portraits of Ashley, Carrie’s girlfriend and Isobel, Marcus’s second wife, are more gently drawn. The new partners learn to cope with Marcus’s addiction and the fallout that has scarred his daughter. There are no easy answers or trite solutions, but the story is written with warmth and humanity.
This is not a book about process safety or accident prevention; it doesn’t cover the causes of the 1988 Piper Alpha accident, nor the response of the regulators and industry. This is a work of fiction exploring the effect of a workplace accident on friends and families: mental health injuries that are not reflected in the blunt statistics.
In the Shadow of Piper Alpha is a beautifully constructed, thought-provoking novel which takes us on two journeys. One is geographical – from Korea to Scotland through the fascinating geology of Japan, New Zealand, and Hawaii. The second is emotional – ripples of survivor guilt threaten a tsunami of pain until honesty, compassion, and compromise provide a breakwater of hope.
(Extracted from my review for 'The Chemical Engineer' Magazine June 2023)
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