Pirate Latitudes - Michael Crichton

The reasons to read this book are simple: The characters are vivid, the action is intense, and the hero, Captain Hunter, basically can’t stop bagging chicks and killing scrubs (no matter what’s going on around him … I mean like the whole time….just does what he wants….just a great, great fucking character).

But we’ll get to that. First, a little story about Michael “Jurassic Park” Crichton:

My college roommate had a T-Shirt that said “Gay for Crichton” on it. He was a Lit major. It was supposedly ironic because Crichton was a guy that at one time had the number one TV Show, Bestselling novel, and number one movie in America … all at the same time. So at some point in the years we’d all watched E.R. or seen Jurassic Park, and therefore (and perhaps uniquely) a writer captured the imagination (and readership) of his entire contemporary world. He was my first read the book before the movie comes out experience.

I read Jurassic Park before I knew about the movie and that meant I got to be up on something nobody else knew about. It was an intoxicating and formative experience. Which probably makes me a douche bag. Fuck you.

I mean the dude is one hell of a storyteller. Someone that made writing appear easy, and yet stood apart somehow. Maybe because he got filthy rich. It’s been said that his remarkable genius was to make everything he wrote impossible to put down. Again, the irony was that even my roommate wanted to be him, but he probably hated the high standard he set. My roommate was caught in a Crichton fanboy bromance. It was an unspeakable love. “Gay” I suppose was a good word for it. Kids are dumb.

True story - when I was young I used to reach into my backpack and slap those big heavy-ass paperback books down on my desk when I’d first arrive to class. I was in 5th grade and I did this so everyone could see what kind of awesomely long books I was tackling in a week. I couldn’t afford Girbauds, so I had to have a little “make do” about things. Reading Crichton books was my subtle boast and goddamnit I was proud of that shit.

For a 10 year old boy growing up without the internet, Crichton’s books were like crack. The topics were cutting edge, stressful, and rational. He seemed to ask great questions about power, human will, technology, greed, etc. but then you realized he was also a craftsman. And that he’d made a fucking fortune writing the same book over and over again. My mom used to make me play video games to give my eyes a break from reading … no shit. She said I’d go blind reading so goddamn much. (Kids are dumb)

Anyway, despite the above antics, I must admit humbly that (real-talk) I do have love for Crichton and so should you. This man awoke within me a Faustian passion for escape in the pages of books written by someone I’d actually never met, and filled with characters I’d get to know better than real life people.  This is a deep down young boy being awakened to reading for the first time kind of love. In short he made reading cool for me and it’s remained just as cool all through the years. Michael Crichton was a gateway drug.  

So then I grew up and now I don’t read as many thriller books as I used to, I’ve missed his last few and had no clue that he’d done a pirate novel. So this is a tribute/review that organically grew out of a real shitty morning I recently had the pleasure of escaping via the pages of his final book Pirate Latitudes published posthumously.

I was walking through the Newark airport badly hung over with nothing to read and a 4 hour flight ahead of me. The hair of the dog wouldn’t touch me, and so I was rather hopeless for a fix of sorts. The Newark airport is spacious and sterile believe it or not, but I was not in the mood for bright lights and a lot of bullshit. I see a bookstore and head in. As I’m looking through the dollar paperbacks bin (yeah that’s a thing) I see Pirate Latitudes for $5. “What the hell was this?” I thought. A pirate novel by Michael Crichton? Whaaaaat? So I bought it, and read it. All of it. On the plane. Couldn’t put it down, of course.

When I was done, I read the afterword and learned that they found this book in his files after his death so it was only recently released (2011). You could tell that some of the bits were possibly never revised. I get the impression he’d not had a chance to really give it the final once over.

Regardless, I highly recommend this book – it’s a fun fast read and actually educational.

I’ll admit that I have never really grasped the whole “pirate” thing from a historical perspective that made sense until now. I’d only just imagined that at that time, some people chose to be spurious assholes and steal from the great European powers on the high seas like a villain or bandit in the old west. You know just randomly fucking up some bank or town or whatever, just simple cretinous bastards with low IQs and probably VD.  Kids are dumb.  

But as it turns out, there’s an interesting sub history to the golden age of piracy that thematically centers itself within a shared hatred among the French and English for all things Spanish. This was the status quo within the Caribbean for most of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Essentially being a privateer (pirate) meant that you were invested in by the royal crown of England to go on a nominal fool’s errand (like clearing a forest or mining) when in reality you were being paid (and armed) to go royally fuck with the Spanish Armada and give a percentage of the loot to the English king (clandestinely). This kept the balance of power in the region and helped the English and French gain territory in order to compete with Spanish supremacy.

So basically the entrepreneurs of the age, who weren’t already filthy rich, appropriated wealth from the Spanish Armada for “god and country” in the form of well-funded guerilla enterprise. A privateer’s skill set included but was not limited to: peerless seamanship, survival skills, hand to hand combat, gunplay, swordplay, weather prediction, pagan religion, world politics, polyglot proficiency, economics, and wit, among other things.

This book is all about one such adventure as it follows the (aforementioned) splendidly educated and misogynist Cpt. Charles Hunter. It becomes clear as he fucks bitches, eats peanuts, and commandeers supplies from the governor of Jamaica (at that point one of only a few British settlements in the region) that his purpose is to attack a well-defended and well-gunned Spanish outpost built upon a strategically fortified desert island. The objective is to steal the treasure from a cargo ship that has sought protection while repairs are being made within the fortress harbor. This “treasure” is equivalent to an obscene fortune by today’s standards. Think $300 million-ish.

Under the secret support of the English King, Hunter sets off forming a plan and recruiting crew from the dregs of Port Royale (the Jamaican capital at the time). Everyone behaves based on a criminal code that has a kind of nationalistic honor behind it. Once recruited, they sober up quickly and get their shit together because they trust in the leadership of Hunter and know he’ll return and split his plunder. An adventure like this if successful could buy a year’s worth of rum and whoring. Plus there are political overtones that justify such a risk beyond the lure of pure booty.

Summarily everyone fucking hates the Spanish and constantly they are denigrated in the dialogues as shoddy seamen, shitty lovers, fake Catholics, etc. There’s a great swollen pride involved in getting King Charles (or Louis if you’re French) some dollars from the superb douche-canoe that was King Phillip of Spain (think LeBron James).

Ultimately Hunter and crew have the adventure of a lifetime taking them from hand to hand combat with Spanish soldiers, to fights with cannibalistic Caribe natives, to fighting a goddamn Kraken … yep a giant sea squid aka Kraken. People die, chicks get nailed, good conquers evil …

Anyway in conclusion, because there is a kind of justice in the world … come to find out it’s going to be a Spielberg film. SO if you don’t know now you know … Hipsta – you can be up this before the movie comes out. I give it a trashy paperback hyper-FRESH. Boom.

Matt Cowart