Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 26 June 2019

Sail away with the must-see

documentary ‘Maiden’

By LINDSEY BAHR the now 50-something Ed- competitors were able to
Associated Press wards, her crew, the men convince corporate spon-
Just over 30 years ago, she raced against and the sors to deal with the risk.
a woman named Tracy journalists who covered In a move she seems to re-
Edwards had the idea to her at the time alongside gret now, she finally found
lead an all-female crew in riveting footage from their support from King Hussein
the Whitbread Round the harrowing trip around the of Jordan who arranged
World Yacht Race. It wasn’t world, “Maiden” is the best for Royal Jordanian Airlines
exactly met with a ground- adventure film of the year to support Maiden.
swell of support, or any sup- so far. The story is so inher- “Maiden” is not presented
port, for that matter. ently cinematic you have through rose-colored glass-
This image released by Sony Pictures Classics shows a scene The thing is, for a pastime to wonder why some en- es either. There was a lot of
from the film “Maiden.” that has so many feminine terprising Hollywood pro- conflict among Edwards’
Associated Press
terms associated with it, ducer hasn’t scooped up crew before they even set
there was a lot of ingrained the rights to make an epic sail, and she ended up fir-
sexism among its partici- scripted film out of it al- ing the most experienced
pants. The idea of even ready. Daisy Ridley is right sailor she’d recruited.
having one woman on there! But maybe the world It is a delight watching these
board who wasn’t doing just needed a little (re)in- now middle aged women
the cooking and clean- troduction to Edwards and recount the details of their
ing was seen as a liability. the tale of the Maiden. big youthful adventure, not
They’re too weak! And Ed- It was quite a feat for these to mention hearing from
wards herself, who every- women to even get the the men who doubted and
one points out is a slight chance to compete at all. dismissed them at every
“wisp of a woman,” was re- Edwards spent two years step. For the women, their
garded as a nothing more looking for sponsorship to gender was a non-issue.
than a side-show by the offset the costs of the pric- They were simply athletes in
competitive yachting com- ey endeavor and was met competition who wanted
munity and the journalists with hundreds of declines, to win. For everyone else,
covering the sport. even from those who sup- it was all they could see.
But in 1989, at age 24, she ported the mission. Compa- One journalist, Bob Fisher, is
did it. Her unlikely journey nies were genuinely afraid reminded of how he called
from misfit teen to feminist that the women would all them a “tin full of tarts” in
symbol, despite her dis- die and worried about the an article. A contemporary
taste for the term, is exhila- optics. They weren’t wrong admits that while his cover-
ratingly chronicled in the that death was a possibility. age wouldn’t pass modern
documentary “Maiden ,” As Edwards says, the ocean standards that he wasn’t
from director Alex Holmes. is “always trying to kill you,” “quite as chauvinistic as
Told through interviews with but somehow the male Bob Fisher.” q

Barron’s ‘Black Mountain’

stars his ex-mob enforcer

By BRUCE DESILVA dard,” a novel that intro-
Associated Press duced former mob enforc-
“Black Mountain,” by Laird er Isaiah Coleridge. At the
Barron (Putnam) start of that violent book,
Like a lyricist, Laird Barron Coleridge appeared to be
excels at manipulating the a predatory machine; but,
tones and cadence of lan- by its conclusion, he vowed
guage. Like a Gothic nov- that from then on he would
elist, the mood he creates kill only those who have it
is often bleak. coming.
“You don’t teach a child to Barron’s new novel, “Black
become a killer by rote lec- Mountain,” finds Coleridge This book cover image
tures,” he writes. “To create working as a private in- released by Putnam shows
a predatory machine, you vestigator in the Catskills “Black Mountain,” by Laird
foster an appreciation of mountains of upstate New Barron.
the natural world and our York. There, the local mob Associated Press
minuteness upon its can- boss hires him to find out fashion. Soon, his suspicions
vass... We are as nothing who brutally killed two or- focus on another retired hit-
and that permits us to do ganized crime strong arms_ man, a mysterious psycho-
anything.” and why. path known as the Croat-
It comes as no surprise, As Coleridge digs into the oan, the name of a Native
then, that Barron wrote case, he learns that many American tribe to which he
both poetry and horror be- other victims, mostly der- may or may not be related.
fore turning to crime fiction elicts and prostitutes, have But the case proves to be
with 2018’s “Blood Stan- been murdered in a similar far from straightforward.q