Journey to St. Thomas

A 21st century re-imagining of the Canterbury Tales, set on a vacation cruise in the midst of the pandemic, a wonderful story for our time   Hoping for an adventure (at a discounted price), two dozen strangers set sail to balmy St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. As different from one another as strangers can be, they agree to pass the time by telling stories, entertaining one another.

As the stories are shared, everyone learns more about their neighbors and starts to bond. Partway though the voyage, however, they are notified about a virus that has spread across the United States and their destination. Their ship is quarantined and they are destined to loll on the waves of the open sea until a port welcomes them. Stuck together in the confines of the ship, they continue regaling each other with more tales.    

A Journey to St. Thomas is modern re-imagining of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Josiah Hatch, who studied Anglo Saxon and Middle English languages at Oxford University, uses iambic pentameter and craftily updates Chaucer’s characters to those on the present-day cruise liner.