Williwaw

Vidal's first novel - written when he was 19 - takes place aboard an Army boat in the Aleutian Islands near Alaska, and is as turbulent a drama as the Arctic wind from which it takes its name.

Into the minds of a half dozen men aboard a ship making a three day voyage amongh the trecherous Aleutians, nature projects the conflict of her forces. Battling the sea and struggling against each other as the dreaded williwaw approaches, strikes, and subsides, the men reveal the storms within their souls, stark, fierce, and compelling. And pervading all is the grim atmosphere, set down with a mastery of description, of the desolate Arctic and the harsh destructive storm.