Day file photo
The Los Angeles class fast-attack submarine Columbia, the last of her class to be built by Electric Boat, slides into the waters of the Thames River in Groton Saturday, Sept. 24, 1994
Day file photo The Los Angeles class fast-attack submarine Columbia, the last of her class to be built by Electric Boat, slides into the waters of the Thames River in Groton Saturday, Sept. 24, 1994 |
Featured in Arts & Entertainment
Factual Fiction: 'The Last Slider'
By Peter K. Connolly
By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 2/6/2005
A new novel about a Groton-based shipbuilder that is transparently Electric Boat has captured the imagination of shipyard employees who are scrutinizing its pages to see if they know anyone who makes an appearance - or, if they've been there long enough, if they made it themselves.
The book is about the 2005 launch of the USS Mystic at a fictional Groton shipyard, New England Shipbuilding, known as "The Ship," at Fort Griswold Bay on the Thames River. The Ship built the Navy's first all-welded submarine and first nuclear submarine.
Notice any resemblance to Electric Boat, "The Boat," which built the Shark (the first all-welded submarine) and the Nautilus (the first nuclear submarine)?
"It's my first book, so I was a little cautious about what I can say, and what I can't," said author Peter K. Connolly, who worked at EB from 1968-71, and now lives in New Haven, Mo. "I didn't want to offend anybody, but I think most people are going to understand where Fort Griswold Bay is."
It's not much of a leap to recognize the characters in the book. Joe Dobbs, the tough, gruff but good-hearted general manager, is clearly modeled after Joe Pierce, EB's former GM who died in 1989.
Connolly is a veteran of the era of P. Takis Veliotis, who fought with just about everybody, including The Day, at one point dictating that the newspaper would get no interviews from EB personnel.
It's not much of a stretch to see the similarity with the New London Evening Log, "Long a throbbing thorn in the side of NESCO management."
In the meantime, it's become a popular pastime at "The Boat" to find recognizable characters in "The Last Slider.
"I think you have to be from a certain generation to know most of the players," said EB spokesman Neil D. Ruenzel. "I know a few of them, mostly by reputation, because they were gone by the time I got here, but I think it's going to be a fun game for people who were here in the 1960s, '70s and '80s time frame to try to identify some of the activities and some of the players."
The title refers to the old method of launching submarines by sliding them down the building ways, a method abandoned in 1995 at EB when submarines got a little too big to slide them into the river safely.
The plot has multiple threads: a reporter from a major Washington paper involved in a rather heinous hit-and-run; a serial killer who does freelance photography for "The Boat" (at one point Connolly ties him to the Martha Moxley murder in Greenwich); and a love triangle (quadrangle eventually, with everyone ending up happy) involving Casey Kiernan, a Roma Downey look-alike who does public relations for EB.
It's engaging, a page-turner, if not for the plot than for the breezy writing style, much better than you might expect from a first novel.
Ruenzel, who runs public relations at EB these days but bears not the slightest resemblance to Roma Downey, was impressed enough by the book to send out an e-mail to people associated with the shipyard advising of its publication.
"I found it to be a fun read, and a smart read," Ruenzel said. "And it's not every day you pick up a book that's written about your department, though I can assure you that none of the characters in 'The Last Slider' have any resemblance to the current employees of the public affairs department."
Only a few people show up unchanged, including retired Navy torpedoman Robert H. Moore of Groton, who merits a mention on page 295 as the author of a poem about paying tribute to lost submariners. Moore acknowledged that he and Connolly were good friends, and he has the book, but he hasn't yet read through page 295.
The novel portrays an EB about as busy as when Connolly was working there, with three attack submarines and two ballistic missile submarines under construction. It is loaded with detail that rings true, from the view out the window of the corporate jet landing at what is clearly Groton-New London airport, to some of the finer points of launching a "slider."
"I had a folder from my time in Groton and I always thought one day I would sit down and write something about EB," Connolly acknowledged. "After a while you pretty much got to know everybody's habits."
"The Last Slider" is available at Bank Square Books Ltd. in Mystic, or from Connolly directly on the web at www.thelastslider.com.
© The Day Publishing Co., 2005
For home delivery, please call 1-800-542-3354 Ext. 4700