The Teller of Tales

When author Clive Cussler realized he was selling a lot of books, he decided to take some of the profits and make part of his fictional world a reality: He founded a real-life National Underwater and Marine Agency to help find and preserve shipwrecks and other pieces of nautical history. It didn't have the same role as his fictional NUMA, which was often on the cutting edge of oceanograpic research, but it did quite a bit. More than 60 wrecks have been discovered by the real-life NUMA, including the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley in 1995. The Hunley was the first submarine to sink a warship other than itself. Cussler was himself an avid explorer and traveler, and shared with his central character Dirk Pitt a love of classic autos. He passed this week at 88.

Since the turn of the century Cussler has operated with a stable of co-authors to handle the several series of novels that bear his name. The last book out under his name alone was 2007's The Wrecker, which began the early 20th century adventures of detective Isaac Bell. Only he and they know how much of the story came from Cussler and how much from the co-author, but given the relatively uncomplicated nature of most Cussler works it's likely that some of the series will continue. His son Dirk Cussler has been co-writing the main sequence of Pitt novels since 2004's Black Wind, and one might assume Cussler fils has his father's blessing to continue.

Anyone who reads a Cussler novel looking for insight into the human condition or answers to the deep questions of life has been listening to whoever told Rick Blaine to go to Casablanca for the waters. Cussler aimed to give a reader some escapist pleasure contained in a bright dust jacket and the few times he ventured to Make a Point it concerned his beloved oceans and their residents, and he succeeded far more often than he failed. He had the odd habit of inserting himself into his novels in cameo roles, and would make it a joke by having the characters almost remember the fellow they kept meeting in book after book. In a discussion with friends about the news of Cussler death, I said, "The style could be stilted, the characters thin and the clichés thick in a Cussler novel, but the man could yarn."

He could, he did and when it turned out that by doing so he could make money he used what came his way to try to make the world a bit better place. That indeed is a worthy tale to tell, and to have told of oneself. Fair winds and following seas.