Porter, Katherine Anne Ship of Fools.

A masterpiece of 20th Century literature, thirty years in the writing, set aboard the fictitious North German Lloyd liner VERA during a voyage from Vera Cruz, Mexico to Bremerhaven, Germany in 1931. The plot focuses on the VERA's First Class passengers and their relations among themselves, with the ship's officer's and crew. This brilliant, chilling novel conveys both the stifling shipboard life aboard such a vessel as well as forebodings of the Hitler years to come. An interestingly coda: in real life Porter took a similar voyage in 1931 from Vera Cruz to Germany aboard the North German Lloyd steamer WERRA.