From an acclaimed literary biographer, a riveting and groundbreaking account of what happened to the survivors of the Titanic. While much has been written about the sinking of the Titanic, very little attention has been paid to the hundreds of survivors. Using archival research and interviews with family members, Wilson shows how some survivors used their experience to propel themselves on to fame and how others were wracked with guilt and refused to acknowledge they had been there. Some reputations were destroyed, and some survivors were so psychologically damaged that they took their own lives years later. From the famous survivors like Bruce Ismay and Madeline Astorwho became a bride, a widow, and a mother all within a yearto lesser known survivors Dorothy Gibson and the Navartil brotherswho were traveling under assumed names because they were being abducted by their father Shadow of the Titanicoffers a host of astonishing stories that add an important new dimension to our understanding of this legendary disaster.