On March 18th and 19th, West Kentucky Community & Technical College is hosting its One Book Read project with special guest Tori Murden McClure at the Clemens Fine Arts Center. McClure is an author, athlete, adventurer, and academic, whose memoir "A Pearl in the Storm" tells the story of her row across the Atlantic Ocean back in 1998.
The One Book Read project began at West Kentucky Community & Technical College in 2008 and is an effort to encourage reading across various groups of people on campus and in the community. The project encourages the community, area school districts, and colleges to read the same book and come together to discuss it in a variety of settings. One Book partners join together to plan various events and activities related to the book within the community. The activities for the One Book project culminate in the author's visit to campus for special presentations about the book.
West Kentucky Community & Technical College professor of English Kim Russell is the chair of the One Book Read Selection Committee. She said that some things are too amazing to be fiction and she thinks that McClure is an example of that.
"So, Tori McClure in 1998 decided to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and she was the first woman, and the first American to ever do that. She is also part of a team of the first people to ever ski to the South Pole," said Russell. "Her life is just full of adventures and accomplishments like that. She lives in Louisville now, and she moved to Kentucky as a high school student to attend a school in Louisville, and from there, she attended Smith College and found her love of rowing there, and then went to Harvard Divinity School, and worked in homeless shelters."
Russell said she felt like she learned a lot reading McClure's book and felt she picked up some of her wisdom.
"There are lots of pearls in this book that you can just kind of take with you," she said. "One thing that I really want people to understand about the book is that it's not just about the adventure of rowing across the Atlantic; the rowing is sort of just the backdrop, but it's really more about her journey as a human being and becoming the person she is."
Russell said that McClure faced a lot of her insecurities during her journey across the Atlantic, including the fear of being vulnerable and helpless.
"She feared helplessness, and I think found comfort in being tough and driven and focused on things. And she comes to realize that that life is also about being open to people and loving people and letting people love you. She had been such a solitary person, and so you see through this journey, she ends up going out during the very worst hurricane season on modern record," said Russell. "Her friend Barry Bingham warned her that this might be a possibility and that maybe this wasn't an advisable trip, but she just went ahead and did it and and so her first time going across the Atlantic, she does end up, after about 75 days, having to call for to be rescued and and then the book takes you through her walking through the grief of what she saw as a failure the first time."
The boat McClure rowed across the Atlantic was a 23-foot long, four-foot tall boat that she built herself. Russell said that she had a very tumultuous trip the time she was successful as well.
"In one chapter, the boat capsizes 16 times and the boat is six feet wide, the boat is very small out there in the middle of the ocean all by itself, with no motor or sail or anything like that. She's got oars that were built by the Louisville Slugger company, and that's all she has," said Russell. "Then she gets there and there are lots of people waiting and celebrating."
McClure will appear at the Clemens Fine Arts Center as part of the 2025 One Book Read program on March 18th at 6:00 p.m. and March 19th at 11:00 a.m. at the Clemens Fine Arts Center on the campus of West Kentucky Community & Technical College. The event is free and open to the public.
