Gentleman Overboard by Herbert Clyde Lewis (Novella a Day in May #12)

When Brad of Neglected Books started recommending titles for a new series of reprints, from Boiler House Press, I knew we would be in for something special. Few people know more about overlooked literature than Brad, and he has a wide and varying taste. So I knew I’d have to read whatever output came – and first was a slim book from 1937, Gentleman Overboard by Herbert Clyde Lewis. I ordered a copy in December and it came last month, so… be careful where you order it!

Henry Standish is onboard the Arabella, sailing home from a period spent away from home. He has left his wife and young children behind in something that isn’t called a nervous breakdown, and perhaps isn’t that extreme, but certainly some mental instability has led to him wanting to get away from everything for a while. He is a successful businessman, sensible except when it comes to worrying about appearances, kind and private. (The ‘kindness’ we are told more than we see, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.)

As you may have guessed from the title – early one morning, walking the deck, he slips and falls overboard.

Standish’s thoughts during these seconds were strangely enough more concerned with shame than with fear. Men of Henry Preston Standish’s class did not go around falling off ships in the middle of the ocean; it was just not done, that was all. It was a stupid, childish, unmannerly thing to do, and if there had been anybody’s pardon to beg, Standish would have begged it.

The rest of the novella concerns the hours afterwards. Much of it is spent with Standish and his thoughts as he floats in the ocean – but we also go back to the Arabella and see the actions and responses of crew and passengers (curiously few passengers, helpfully for narrative purposes).

It is an unusual and very good book. I think the thing that makes Gentleman Overboard still feel vital is how timeless the idea is. Or, rather, being stuck alone in the ocean can have very few contemporary trappings. Back on board, there are some elements that remind us we are in the 1930s – but Standish, in the expanse of water, thinks thoughts that anybody in any decade or century might have thought there.

Lewis sustains the idea the perfect length – it is a short novella, and would have felt stretched if it were any longer. His writing is good – unshowy, with neat turns of phrase – but it is his psychological acumen that makes the novella work. And the subtlety with which he delivers it.

Certainly a premise unlike anything I’ve ever read, and a worthy start to a promising series.