Afterlands [Paperback]

Steven Heighton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2007

In 1871, nineteen men, women, and children, voyaging on the Arctic explorer USS Polaris found themselves cast adrift on an ice floe as their ship began to founder. Based on one of the most remarkable events in polar history, Afterlands tells the haunting 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 -- and the harrowing six months they spend marooned in the Arctic, struggling to survive both the harsh elements and one another. As the group splinters into factions along ethnic and national lines, rivalries -- complicated by sexual desire, unrequited love, extreme hunger, and suspicion -- begin to turn violent. Steven Heighton's provocative novel fills in the blanks of the Polaris's documented history and explores the shattering emotional and psychological consequences faced by those who survive.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The retrofitted U.S. Navy tugboat Polaris set out on an expedition for the North Pole in 1872. After getting stuck among ice floes off the coast of Greenland for months, its multinational crew of 25 (plus eight women and children) were separated, with half trapped on the ship and the others trapped on an ice floe onto which they had temporarily decamped. Poet and novelist Heighton (The Shadow Boxer) brilliantly riffs off (and presents snippets of) the diary and memoir of real-life Lt. George Tyson, who was among the ice floe denizens; they survived seven more months before being rescued. When the captain dies under mysterious circumstances, Heighton focuses on Kruger, a German nonconformist who believes "the idiot willingness to take sides is what feeds the abattoir of history." Latent romantic feelings between Kruger and the group's married Esquimau translator, Tukulito, or "Hannah," further complicate an already desperate situation. Tyson, who eventually took command, skillfully manages to steer the diminishing floe to waters frequented by sealers and steamers. Heighton is terrific on the group's isolation and Tyson's often laconic responses to it. He's less good in dramatizing the postexpedition lives of Tukulito, Tyson and Kruger, but this novel's scale, its delight in detail and its psychological insight make it an exceptionally satisfying adventure.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Heighton revisits the catastrophe of the 1871 Polaris expedition, in which 19 members of the crew were cast adrift on the ice off the coast of Greenland. Using the historical record to ground his fictional recounting of what happened once these men, women, and children were accidentally separated from the ship, he then allows his imagination to supply the stories behind the tension that drove the small group apart. Heighton also follows the lives of three of the survivors after their rescue, showing how easily memories can become flawed in the light of public approval and how casually events can be interpreted in many different ways. Ultimately, Heighton suggests that surviving on the ice is the easy thing to do when compared to life in a waiting world with its own ideas about exploration and bravery. It is never easy choosing sides in any drama, shows the author, and it is even more difficult to explain those choices in the years that follow. Colleen Mondor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (February 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061877341X
• ISBN-13: 978-0618773411
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,129,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that stays with you, April 20, 2006

By 

Dartmouth '96 (Ithica NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Afterlands: A Novel (Hardcover)

Afterlands is a densely but beautifully written novel. It's not an overnight read or a beach read, yet the main story is so gripping that you feel driven to read it fast, while also savouring the language. The characters are all richly developed and they stay with you after you finish, like the story itself.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A flawless, multi-faceted gem of a book., June 14, 2009

By 

Cipriano "www.bookpuddle.blogspot.com" (Planet Claire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Afterlands: A Novel (Hardcover)

I consistently read upwards of 50 books a year.
Afterlands is definitely the best book I have read so far this year, and I cannot imagine another one being better for me in 2009.
It is now up there in my opinion with the greats, like Alias Grace, and As The Crow Flies, and Libra, and stuff like that.
I don't even know where to start, [a great synopsis of the book is shown, above].
It's really two novels in one. The Arctic episode. The Mexican episode.
After the Arctic portion of it, the author follows the protagonist Roland Kruger into Mexico, and to further adventures so epic in scope that, as I say, it is almost like reading a second novel. Yet all remains so intertwined [woven], so intricately connected to the themes of displacement and alienation, peril and rescue. Love and loss.
Kruger emerges a hero, but not a super-hero.
There is not one aspect of this novel that is flippant. Nothing is under or over cooked. And let's face it, both things can give one indigestion.
It is a thriller, a page-turner, a stay-awaker, but not a potboiler. Because it is based on actual events, it could be considered historical fiction, yet does not have the feel, in any typical sense, of the genre.
The perfect blend of wild invention and bone-numbing reality.

The white bird, an albino vulture, slouches in a niche in the canyon wall, like statuary in a satanic chapel. Its bald gory head is half turned away, as if feigning disinvolvement or anonymity. [p.320]

Come on now!
That is gorgeous, perfect, writing. And the whole entire book is that good. A lyrical, word-perfect gem.
It's a perfect ten of a book and had me riveted from start to finish.
I encourage you one and all, Afterlands cannot disappoint you.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars after Afterlands..., March 10, 2006

By 

Mr. Bark and Hiss (Akron, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Afterlands: A Novel (Hardcover)

A fantastic story written well.
I was afraid I was going to lose interest after the main plotline seemed to end 2/3rds of the way through and the author had to start inventing his own story a bit more, but it only got better.
Recommended.