At the heart of A Whaler at Twilight is the long-lost true story of an American whaler who embarked on a harrowing adventure in the South Pacific in the mid-nineteenth century in search of absolution and redemption. After the death of his parents, young Robert Armstrong lived with a successful uncle—a well-respected Methodist shopkeeper in bustling 1840s Baltimore—and had the opportunity to attend the nation’s first dental school. But Armstrong threw his future away, drinking himself into oblivion. Devoured by guilt and shame, in December 1849 he sold his dental instruments, his watch,...