[bookshare-discuss] Just Submitted: Afterlands
- From: "Brian Miller" <brian-r-miller@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:33:31 -0800
All,
I have just submitted for validation the following:
Afterlands, a novel, by Steve Heighton, Haughton Mifflin, 2005, pp 400.
From the book jacket:
THIS GRIPPING NOVEL OF ARCTIC survival, is based on one of the most remarkable
events in polar exploration. In 1871, off the coast of Greenland, nineteen men,
women, and children, voyaging on the Arctic explorer USS Polaris, were cast
adrift on a large ice floe as their ship began to founder. Afterlands is the
story of this small society of castaways a white and a black American, five
Germans, a Dane, a Swede, an Englishman, and two Inuit families as they try to
survive a six-month winter ordeal, struggling with the harsh elements and with
one another, the group splintering into factions along ethnic and national
lines.
Steven Heighten provocatively fills in the blanks of the documented history of
this event by focusing on the suspicions, the hunger-induced delusions, and the
unrequited longings among three members of the group: Roland Kruger, an
educated, witty, rebellious German seaman; Tukulito, or "Hannah," the party's
Inuit interpreter; and George Tyson, the American ranking officer, who later
wrote an account of the experience that solidified his reputation as a hero
while casting Kruger as the villain. Throughout the novel, Heighten
incorporates passages from Tyson's contentious account, then daringly imagines
the aftermath of the ordeal, following Kruger, Tukulito, and Tyson as they
attempt to move beyond their searing memories and resume their lives in the
larger world.
Combining the high drama of Arctic survival and the psychological intensity of
modern theater, this beautifully written novel powerfully addresses themes of
belonging, nationalism, and love in times of crisis.
***
This is an awesome book, and I hope someone picks it up soon.
Brian Miller
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