We invited the author, Elizabeth W. Garber, to discuss her second memoir, Sailing at the Edge of Disaster: A Memoir of a Young Woman’s Daring Year—the sequel to Implosion: A Memoir of an Architect’s Daughter. It depicts events from the ship in much greater depth based on Garber’s memories, journals, letters, and information gathered from people in her past. Since I typed this conversation from speed-written notes, there may be inaccuracies, grammatical errors, and incomplete thoughts. So, with apologies to Elizabeth:
Elizabeth’s Presentation, Paraphrased:
Elizabeth: What I discovered about writing a memoir is that so often in our life, we experience something, and it happens, but especially when we’re young, we’re only halfway there. My first was Implosion, which took ten years, then Sailing. The story of sailing on that ship, even though I kept journals and wrote pages a day; and even though I stayed in contact with some of these friends, I realized when I went back to it and started researching it, I realized there was so much I didn’t know and hadn’t figured out about the ship and that I didn’t know about what actually happened in Panama. So, what was so fun was going back and finding my friends, first I took a good six, eight months finding as many people as I could from the ship. And I loved doing detective work and finding people online.
So, I gathered this group together, and we created this private Facebook page. And then I’d keep adding people when I’d find them. We would ask each other questions. We probably had a thousand messages back and forth. And I would ask a question like, “Do you remember when we had to get out of the way of the submarine, and we ran into the sandbar, and do you remember when the rope broke?”
And I realized I did not know how utterly dangerous it was back then. But when I talked to my brother and I interviewed my brother, let us know how dangerous it was. And I took pages and pages of notes talking to him. He’s the one who let me know how utterly dangerous it was. Then, there was a book about Sea Cloud, which had interviews with the captain. He was interviewed about ten or fifteen years later. And I thought, oh, by then, he was older, in his seventies (my age!), and I thought he exaggerated things, made things up, or things were mixed up. But he said, “Oh, we were shot at.”
Huh?
I went to the Facebook group and said, “That’s ridiculous; we weren’t shot at, were we?”
Two or three people said, “Oh, that’s ridiculous.”
And then my closest friends, Kim, Pogo, and Zip; Pogo said, “Oh, yes, we were shot at.”
Kim said, “We were shot at.”
Zip said, “I was right there. I felt the bullets go through the air right over my head.”
The whole story (came out) of how, near the end of our being held hostage on the ship, our captain was afraid that the other ship anchored near us would run into us. He’d asked Zip at about six in the morning to go and lift the anchor chain to get the motor going so we could drift sideways. As soon as they heard that, the soldiers in the PT boat jumped up, started yelling, and shot over Zip’s head.
Meanwhile, at that moment, Pogo was in the bowsprit net watching the morning. He thought this was going to be the end of his life, that he was going to be killed. Kim was up on the bridge with the captain, and they saw it all. I don’t know if they agreed not to tell anyone. I think, especially when you’re shot at, and you’re on a ship with fifty teenagers—if that (information) had gone around the ship, people would have gone nuts. And I think, interestingly or wisely, they didn’t tell anybody.
That was when the captain said, “We’ve got to get all these kids off the ship.”
Part of going back into the experience of what happened that year, the process of writing about it, was that I learned so much about what happened. There were all these really close friends, and some I wasn’t as close to. But in this process of asking all questions and people answering—writing letters back and forth—it was like I was back on the ship again like we were all back on the ship again. We felt so connected again, and we got to experience that camaraderie but (this time) being mature adults. And a number of people said, “I wish I hadn’t been so shy then,” or, “I wish I knew how to communicate better then because I would have been a much better friend.”
We’d all been kids, and we were all learning, but it felt like this extraordinary experience to get to go back in, re-experience something in a new way, extract learning, reflect and learn from it, and then write about it. It was profoundly rewarding. And then getting to share it.
Over the years, sometimes I’d forget about this, and then I’d talk to a friend and say, “Did I ever tell you about being in Panama and there were armed gunboats?”
“No, you never happened to tell me that story.”
It was like, “Oh, yeah, it was pretty crazy.” This gave me that chance to go all the way back in it to figure out what happened. And we never really did figure out what happened. And then hearing the story from a young man in a Native American Reserve up in Canada who told us another whole story about how, (while we were held hostage) Nixon called the Queen, or maybe the Queen called Nixon. Who knows if that’s an urban legend? But hearing about that was like, oh, there might be a whole other level to how we got out of Panama, something we didn’t even know about.
Kathie’s Question: “What do you think Rachel Maddow would say if she independently investigated the story?”
Elizabeth: If Rachel Maddow wrote this, she’d have had a hoot looking into this story that these American kids were held hostage on a ship, and nobody knew about. If it happened now, the news would have been all over it, but back then, nobody knew about it. And I think it must have been covered up.
Later, at home, an aircraft was held hostage, and no one talked about the aftermath of that or anyone needing therapy from the traumatic experience. We just thought, well, we got out of it and what will happen next? The difference between the 70s and now is very different in how things happen to kids.
Karen: “I was wondering how your father was never mentioned again at the end of your book.
Elizabeth: Part of that is because I first wrote a book about him, Implosion—my relationship with my dad and the rest of his life. By the end of the time I was leaving the ship and leaving home, I was just so ready to sort of break out of being his daughter that I cut him out—worked it out over a lifetime.
Sandy: Do you do therapy?
Elizabeth: (Talks about thirty years of therapy involved.) I think my writing these books helped with (the family’s) recovery process. About Implosion, originally, my mother said, “We’ll never read it.” But she read it twice and then praised my writing.
Karen: Who from the ship had the most influence over you?
Elizabeth: Kim and Pogo. Kim became a therapist in England; we’re still in touch. Pogo was supportive and caring—he’s an architect and is still in contact with them. They visited each other in England. During Covid, I made sure to have calls with Kim. We talked about life and death. She was struggling, too. Came to a balanced place over time. Taking care of patients helped us balance this.
Karen: Stephanie and ______(?) Were they real believers (in the school)?
Elizabeth: Their kids were lost, but she kept the school going for nine years. Brilliant, could talk the talk. She was on speed and bipolar. “Diet pills,” I forgot what they were. (Sandy, in the chat, wrote, “amphetamines.”)
Karen: Were they “pimping” the students?
Elizabeth: Steph probably just thought these were good connections for her students to have. Jeffrey Epstein-like, negligent parenting, pay phones were too expensive. Like most parents, my mom was busy in college at the time, which was different from “helicopter parenting.”
Question: What really happened in Panama?
Elizabeth: Canal negotiations? Owners/Panamanians, who had the ship? Probably the owners. I sold it years later.
Kathie’s Question: What kind of book genre is it?
Elizabeth: There are lots of ways to write a memoir. My favorites are written like novels. Often, as an adult, looking back with reflection. When young, it needs to be the point of view of a young person. I was a sixty-year-old adult looking back. I worked with (?) to figure out the right voice.
I used a voicy-voice teenager voice. It helped me step back into that teenage voice and put me right there. Memories poured back from my journals, alive and well in me, with so much self-consciousness. It was really fun interviewing people. They got back into their teenage voices.
Real hero—my brother—I realized how remarkable my brother was. He understood way better than Stephanie. He told the truth, always got into trouble for it, and thought badly about himself.
I wanted to show how remarkable he was. Such a wise person at fifteen. One of the heroes of that year. Writing that book was my way of giving my brother a gift. His spirit was annihilated by my dad. The healing process of the book. Book about a tormented adolescence. Lots of kids could have gone over the edge. It’s hard to believe no one died.
Question: Would (you) do it again?
Elizabeth: Shakes head. I don’t know. Amazing years. Shocking things happened. A friend is working on a screenplay presentation, hoping to present and for filming.
Question: Why did they take you for birth control without permission?
Elizabeth: So shocking, so crazy. It puts readers back into the 70s and what a wild time it was. Three people (in Maine) were accepted the same year as us but couldn’t get the airfare. She was devastated her whole life until she read the book. Then, she did a great year abroad in England instead. Steph sent twenty kids to the Ivory Coast. They felt abandoned by her and had to make up their own program.
Karen: Your mother trying to be independent. How did she make out after leaving him?
Elizabeth: Got a degree in criminal justice. Volunteers on probation, set up programs for judges and lawyers to spend time in jail and see what it’s like. I worked for Child Protective Services. She’s 94 years old, and she lives near me. There are stories about my mom on Facebook and Instagram. We still have adventures.
Sue: I really enjoyed the book. Older/years, wouldn’t I have loved to do that, maybe not the nerve. Reliving the 70s, when I was at that age, took me back.
Kathie: Has anyone approached you about using this book as a class?
Elizabeth: I didn’t think of this as a way to bring it to young people. Maybe a summer class. Teen class, great idea. Tie it into being a memoir-writing class.
Streaming services, not to shorten it, develop characters. Songs, groups, singing. It made me feel like a teenager all over again.
Question: Storm/waves, incredibly high, were you afraid that you’d have the fate of your grandparents?
Elizabeth: My brother and I both thought we were going to die. Up on the rigging, one of the scariest things in my life. Writing (this book), I closed my eyes to relive all the five senses. I asked myself, what scene have you been putting off with the rigging? I cried when I read it. The student did EMDR with me to get me back into balance after reliving it.
New Project: So much history. My grandmother was the love child of Albert Hubbard. She died at the age of twenty. While researching there, I stayed in a house where she lived when she was ten. Went through different eras.
I imagine myself into her. She wrote lots of essays. 1819 farming. She was the person I admired most in my childhood. I was immersed in the 1920s and 30s. A whole different experience of it. Calling it a historical novel, I have to call it fiction, imagining myself into her. She volunteered at the nunnery and became an associate at Evensong—friends with the heiress of Proctor and Gamble. Had Van Goghs, Picassos, and Chagalls. We were in the house across the street.
Today, I wrote a scene (taking place) there with tea, talking about buying her first Chagall. She researched the art museum. My mom sometimes corrects how her mom would have said something.
I have stacks of notes of vivid details of their stories.
For More on Elizabeth Garber, please visit her website at: