Shawn Carlow Writes

PEOPLE OF THE TITANIC

30 TALES OF EXTRA-DOOMED SOULS WHO SAILED ON THE SHIP OF DREAMS

Surely you know some of the stories of the Titanic: the captain who stayed at the helm of his ship; the Unsinkable Molly Brown; the band that kept playing as the ship went down.

But there were others that you may know less about. Like:

The German brothers who ran a hot dog stand on the top deck who, at the end, when people were sliding by, were handing them hot dogs, saying “Tell all your friends.”
A notorious Irish step-dancer and grandly prolific impregnator of the steerage class
The Dutch water dog and model for Jack Dawson, who acted as a comfort dog to his Dutch owner on her first voyage overseas following her husband’s tragic passing in a tulip farming accident.
The scientist whose important early work with insulin was thwarted by the delusional rantings of conspiracy theorists.

Plus 26 more stories of pulse-pounding danger, intrigue, and laughter that, while they may not be technically true, certainly could be if you just took a moment to close your eyes, lean back, and listen hard enough to Celine Dion’s uplifting voice, and you BELIEVE.

Welcome to People of the Titanic.

ADVANCED PRAISE

"Throw some of your allegiance to historical facts overboard and enjoy these funny and imaginative tales of the doomed ship's lesser-known guests."

Martha Kelly

(Euphoria, Baskets)

"Suck it, James Cameron. You've been bested by Shawn Carlow's hilarious take on the Titantic."

Raj Desai

(The Tonight Show, Triumph’s Election Watch)

“Whatever you’ve heard about the Titanic is just the tip of some pyramid-shaped object…laughter lurks beneath that structurally unsound deck. ‘People of the Titanic’ will quickly float to the top of your list of historical, tragedy-related comedy.”

Jessie Gaskell

(Conan, Conan O'Brien Must Go)

"I’ve often thought to myself, why can’t accounts of the tragic sinking of the Titanic be a bit more...upbeat? Well, my prayers have been answered by this fun-filled romp through the aquatic graveyard! What could be better?"

Mark Ganek

(Archer, The Tick)

"The humorous spin on the Titanic we've all been waiting for. Finally, a book that bridges the gap between history nerds and comedy nerds."

Brian Kiley

(Conan, The Astounding Misadventures of Rory Collins)

“If you've ever wondered what would happen if The Canterbury Tales hooked up with Our Town and had an illegitimate child on a cruise, then this book's for you.”

Gregory Martin

(Jimmy Kimmel Live!)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shawn Carlow is a writer and producer who has worked for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Deon Cole’s Black Box, among others. He’s written jokes for stage, radio, and various standup comics.

In addition, he does stand-up comedy himself and has made a number of award-winning comic short films that were shown at various live shows and on CBS. He has a wife and a cat.

People of the Titanic is his first novel.

AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK

Nowadays, modern cruise ships dwarf the Titanic, with the largest being about five times what Titanic weighed. But in 1912, the Titanic was the largest ship to ever set sail, at slightly over 882 feet in length, with over 46,000 gross tons in weight. But it still wasn’t enough when nature challenged her to a duel in the North Atlantic.

It was a duel that claimed more than 1,500 lives, including those who even may have perished well before the sinking took place.

On that fateful night, a diminutive 38-year-old hatmaker from Birmingham, England, named Britain Collings, who was said by all accounts to be enormously intoxicated, claimed that he was constantly asking for his drinks “on the rocks” and being constantly disappointed in what he got in return. “Where is all the ice?” he wailed.

That all changed as he stood on the promenade deck along the right side of the ship, as it scraped along the side of the iceberg, sending pieces of ice careening onto multiple levels of the vessel. As ice began falling all around him, his wife, and his seven children, Collings was seen to extend his whiskey glass out in front of him, proclaiming, “Now that’s more like it.”

But that wasn’t the end, for there was an exchange made. Pieces of ice fell onto the deck of the Titanic, and Collings, newly animated by the ice downpour, and with the overzealous, chance-taking bravado of a confident drunk man, suddenly hurled himself towards the boat’s right-side railing, his drink in one hand, his walking cane in the other, and leapt clear over the railing and onto the enormous ice mass, landing on a lower shelf.

He was last heard shouting, “Oh, now I’ve gone and done it!” by his wife, who could only watch in helpless horror as the great ship sailed on.

And as she sat the next morning in the lifeboats with her newly fatherless brood of seven, she quietly vowed to a companion that she would not marry another hatmaker, for they were always “the wildest of men, unfit for fathering and unfit really, for anything other than the making of hats.” And then, as if to refute even that point, the band on her Edwardian hat snapped off and fell determinedly into the sea.