Using his great-great-grandfather's previously undiscovered nineteenth-century account of whaling, logging, and searching for salvation as an anchor, Alexander Brash weaves a fascinating tale in which he not only illuminates his ancestor's compelling journey of discovery, but also his own. Part history, part meditation on the meaning of religion and life, and part plea to better protect the environment, A Whaler at Twilight is a wonderful and thought-provoking read. The colorful characters alone are worth the price of admission.

– Eric Jay Dolin, author of Leviathan and Black Flags, Blue Waters

A Whaler at Twilight reads like being invited over to a new friend’s home and hearing all about his family’s sprawling history. It’s a chronicle that reels in a panoply of subjects—ecology, religion, and history—and ultimately serves as a tender reminder that, no matter the era, our relationship with the ever-changing world is just as complex as the relationship we nurture with ourselves.

– Brandon Presser, author of The Far Land: 200 Years of Murder, Mania & Mutiny in the South Pacific

A unique and engrossing duet format. Alex beautifully intertwines his great-great-grandfather Rob’s autobiographical account with reflections and thoroughly researched historical context. Rob’s fascinating account steeps readers in a mid-nineteenth-century whaler’s life and in Rob’s formative ten-year journey wrestling with his inner demons to find himself. Alex’s reflections and research deepen readers’ understanding of Rob, the time period, the South Pacific region and inhabitants Rob came into contact with, the whaling industry, and the cultural milieu.

A Whaler at Twilight is also a compelling bridge between the past and present as Alex shares his own journey retracing his great-great-grandfather’s footsteps in New Zealand and considers his and Rob’s differing paths and circumstances. The book ends with Alex’s reflections as a conservationist on man’s relationship with the natural world and its future. Readers can’t help but parallel and compare the grim realities of whaling in A Whaler at Twilight with man’s relationship with nature today.

– Bradley Tusk, founder and CEO of Tusk Ventures; owner of P&T Knitwear Bookstore

It’s extraordinary, it's very clever, and hauntingly profound on so many levels. I’m in awe, you write fabulously well. I just wish I was back in the Southern Ocean with you.

– Nicolas Dillon, New Zealand wildlife artist

This previously unpublished narrative of nineteenth-century whaler and lumberman Robert W. Armstrong is so full of compelling and shocking stories about life at sea and the impact that men, whaling, and colonialism had on the people and ecosystems of the South Pacific and Aotearoa New Zealand that it deserves an important place on the same shelf as the narratives of J. Ross Browne, Henry Cheever, and Francis Allyn Olmsted. The layering of Armstrong's grappling with redemption, Brash's historical interpretation, and his own quest of discovery as a descendant who has spent his career in conservation builds A Whaler at Twilight into a unique and deeply personal odyssey.

– Richard J. King, visiting professor at the Sea Education Association (Woods Hole) and author of Ahab's Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick

An adventure story beyond just the era it depicts. Alexander Brash ties the tale together with his passion for environmental conservation to provide an epilogue to [his ancestor] Robert Armstrong’s exciting accounts.

– Quarterdeck