Inside the Cover
Sailing the Graveyard Sea and Middle C
Season 6 Episode 624 | 5mVideo has Closed Captions
Ted reviews both a non-fiction history and a novel of fiction in this episode.
Two books are reviewed. The first is a non-fiction account of the mutiny on USS Somers-- the only one in U.S. Navy history. The second is Middle C, a novel about a con artist posing as a music teacher.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Inside the Cover is a local public television program presented by PBS Kansas Channel 8
Inside the Cover
Sailing the Graveyard Sea and Middle C
Season 6 Episode 624 | 5mVideo has Closed Captions
Two books are reviewed. The first is a non-fiction account of the mutiny on USS Somers-- the only one in U.S. Navy history. The second is Middle C, a novel about a con artist posing as a music teacher.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipGood Evening.
Welcome to our show.
If you have been waiting for us, thank you.
If you are a first time viewer of our show, I hope you will enjoy our program.
Tonight I want to bring a couple of books to your attention and we have a lot to cover, so let's get started.
It is now time to go inside the cover.
Our first book is Sailing th Graveyard Sea by Richard Snow.
The book was copyrighted in 2023, and I finished my copy on February 28th, 2025.
The subtitle is The Deadl Voyage of The Somers, the U.S. Navy's Only Mutiny and the Trial that Gripped the Nation.
That's a bit of a mouthful, but it is certainly accurate.
I had never heard of this situation, and the tale that Snow tells could be the script for an action drama for television or the movies.
On September 13th, 1842, the USS Somers, a U.S. Navy brig of war left the harbor of New York City to sai to the western coast of Africa.
When the ship returned to New York on December 14th, 1842 it had three fewer crew members.
I don't want to spoil the rea for you, so let me just say that I think the author does a wonderful job of telling this story.
He uses newspaper reports, court martial transcripts, diary excerpts personal letters, and commentary from a number of observers, including Herman Melville.
Our second book, tonight is Middle C by William H. Gass.
William H. Gass was an award winning novelist, short story writer essayist, critic, and philosophy professor at Washington University in Saint Louis.
Middle C was his third novel, and it won the 2015 William Dean Howes Medal.
The book tells the story of Joseph Skizzen, who was also once Yussel Fixel and who also had the surname Scofield as Skizzens father moved the family from Austria to Londo during the early days of WWII.
After his father deserted them Skizzen, his Mother and Sister moved to the U.S., ultimately ending up in Ohio.
Joseph “Joey” Skizzen is a complicated man with a secret self.
He is overly devoted to his mother.
He has a fear of women.
He is insecure.
He is compulsive and obsessive.
He's a fair piano player and he's a fraud.
With no educational credentials, he becomes a professor of music at a small private college in Ohio.
He drives a beat up Rambler without a licens or really knowing how to drive.
And he has a fantasy goal to establish the Inhumanity Museum using clips that he religiously clips from newspapers and magazines that he then stores in his attic.
As I noted, Gass uses every technique-- poetry, song lyrics, alliteration, complex ru on sentences to craft his story.
As an example of a long sentence, see your screen.
It is, I would suggest, a rant against war.
Gass did not enjoy his time in the Navy, calling it the worst period in his life.
As he writes, ‘the many sorts of wars that old folks arrange, the middle aged manage and the young fight.
Gass also has Skizzen, throughout the book, obsessively focused o the improvement of the following sentence: ‘Our concern tha the human race might not endure has been succeeded by the fear it will survive.
If you enjoy creative, thoughtful and inventive writing, I think you will enjoy Middle C by William H. Gass.
That's our show.
We have covered a lot of ground in talking about Middle C by William H. Gass and Sailing the Graveyard Sea by Richard Snow.
I found both books to be of interest and I hope you do as well.
Good night and see you next time.
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Inside the Cover is a local public television program presented by PBS Kansas Channel 8