Customer Reviews

The Expeditions

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction is, for my money, the best American short story collection debut of the 21st century--funny and weighty, as cutting edge as the latest development in engineering and as old as brokenheartedness. The Expeditions is a different animal altogether--but it is equally impressive. The novel has its funny moments--the Rev. Stone notes that he doesn't want to stay in a certain inn because it strikes him as too "characterful"; Suzette the steely halfbreed abuse victim dreams of a place where she hears "the land is free and the soil is good, and there is fishing and hunting and the winters are not so cold"--yes, that promised land, Milwaukee. But this novel is most impressive for the way that, in telling the story of two men--the widower, opium-addicted, preacher father; and his wayward, would-be naturalist son Elisha--Iagnemma manages to illuminate such a broad and overlooked swath of American history and geography. We learn in vivid and convincing detail about the 1840's, and about that tier of land from the northern Appalachian trail to the Great Lakes, so familiar to migrant New Englanders in search of better farmland and better lives, or simply escape from the strictures of family and community. We learn along the way about religion from the old-line Congregationalism of New Hampshire to the Millerites who believed the world would end, like, tomorrow; also of the challenge religion faced in the dawning of the age of Darwin, when the great mysteries of Creation faced the peril of being explained naturally. The Expeditions also introduces us to the Chippewa, to Americans high and low, racist and not, hucksterish and gullible, and to the everyday challenges everyone faced in the days when the country and the industrial revolution were both in their infancy. And we learn about all these things without even realizing it, for the story of father and son separating and then reuniting is a familiar one, but no less enthralling for that. This is a moving and illuminating novel written with gravity and grace--a truly substantial book. I highly recommend it.

I read "The Expeditions" straight through and found it as enthralling as Iagnemma's excellent story collection. The sentences are pitch perfect, lovely astonishing, and the portrait of America and its religious, atavistic impulses make this an important (and enthralling) national saga. Buy it. You won't regret it.

I finished this novel last weekend on a long, turbulent flight home from New England, and while I might have been easily pulled from the fictive dream of a lesser novel by the shuddering plane and the peripheral flashing of wing lights and the pervasive, sour smell of bad, coach-fare food warmed in plastic--instead, thankfully, I was trekking through the upper peninsula of Michigan, bearing witness to the quiet, naturalistic transformation of Elisha Stone, to the aching urgency of his consumptive father's pursuit. This is a novel that fulfills the promise of Iagnemma's wonderful collection of stories, _On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction_, one that finds its protagonist on the frontier of his own maturity. A bildungsroman with a convincing, and nearly flawlessly researched, eye for the nuances of setting and history, _The Expeditions_ marks the development of a major talent. And, with all due respect to a previous reviewer, the assertion that a novel is seriously flawed because it makes repeated use of a certain punctuation mark is the sophomoric critical equivalent of defaming a concerto because of a preponderance of sixteenth-notes. This is a novel that pays dividends, one that obviously cost the writer more than the time spent writing it. Here is a work as engaging and emotionally rewarding as the lives it dreams into existence.

A fabulous novel from start to finish! This totally atmospheric account of Michigan in the 1840s had me completely entranced - I set aside all other activities in order to savour every page. Gorgeous descriptions of nature, and a finely drawn plot make me regret it only lasted for 300+ pages. and I am anxious now to see what else this excellent writer has produced.

The expedition that is the trip these people take is a canoe and hiking adventure through the forest and streams of upper Michigan in 1844, but it is also a life journey for each of the characters in the book. In a story that richly develops the primary actors in Iagnemma's suspense-filled novel, only one, Elisha Stone, a 16-year-old wannabe scientist, is drawn to the expedition for altruistic reasons, to learn to become a better scientist and perhaps catalogue heretofore unknown species of plants and animals.

As the first party, made up of Professor George Tiffin, an anthroplogist with a wacky theory that early America had been settled by a lost tribe of Israel to whom the indigenous native are related; Silas Brush, an engineer-surveyor under government contract; and young Elisha Stone, the perils of the expedition are foreshadowed by the non-appearance of their professional guide, Ignace Morel. Instead, Ignace's wife, Susette, a lovely half-Chippewa woman shows up to convince them that she can guide them for she knows the territory as well. With that introduction and the particular misgivings of Silas Brush, the quartet sets off from Sault Ste Marie toward the northern peninsula.

In the days to come, Iagnemma's characters come to life and the hostility between the professor and the enginer is born and grows larger with each passing day. More than just a conflict between two alpha males, the reader comes to acively dislike Brush for his brusque demands and also the professor for his insistence upon the superiority of his seemingly half-witted ideas. Elisha finds himself all two often pulled and pushed between the two as well as a blossoming romantic interest in Susette. Still the quartet pushes on. Like the search for the Holy Grail, Brush catalogues the timber and geology, and the professor dreams of the legendary painted rocks that will prove his theory and make them all famous.

The breathtaking beauty of the pristine country with its clear waterways and lakes and primary growth forests inspire young Elisha to give way to poetic descriptions in his fieldbook even while feeling ashamed of their non-scientific nature. Iagnemma uses the young man's skills to offer his readers a taste of what young America must have been like with fish so abundant they literarlly leap from the waters and despite a century of trapping, wildlife both furred and feathered, filled the land and lakes.

As the dynamic and growing differences between members of this first group become more contentious, a second party of travelers gather back in Detroit where the missing guide and husband, Ignace Morel, meets the alcoholic, drug-addicted Reverend Stone, Elisha's father who has set out to find his son to inform him of his mother's death. Thus, the conflicts of the story multiply, the forest arena and its contestants are delineated.

Mr. Iagnemma's characers are flly fleshed out, and like them or not, they are believable and we are brought to understand the underlying motives for their behaviors. Furthermore, there is in each of them a tragic flaw, deceit brought on by greed. The Expeditions parades their unflattering characteristics before our eyes and we watch with something akin to horror as the consequences play out among these people held together for safety against the forest animals and elements and the natives who populate the wild.

As the story unfolds we learn that Susette Morel, the half-Chippewa woman, doesn't just happen to be in Sault Ste Marie and available as a guide to replace her missing husband: she has run away from his physical and sexual sadism. Professor Tiffin had brought faked artifacts he will use to prove his theory in order to gain professional recognition. The drunken minister is working out his guilt for his dispassionate lack of concern for his son; and Silas Brush is using the government surveying contract to perpetrate a land grab sceme.

Stylistically, The Expeditions is a great joy of lyrical prose and delightful metaphor. There are times, however, when I felt the author labored too hard to create quotes from philosophic and academic sources (to establish authenticity?) and slowed the narrive in places as well as did his references to William Miller, the famed Millenialist cult leader who led his followers to expect the end of the world in 1846. Overall, however, I found the book well done, and young Elisha Stone provided an excellent vehicle to show the new world as it must have looked in 1844.

Karl Iagnemma's, the Expedition, is a welcome addition to our collection of stories of the beginnings of American history for its portait of life in the then "western" frontier and rip roaring frontier populace settling the west for fame and fortune, sometimes without regard for moral or ethical restraint. Most of all, The Expedition is a genuinely good read.

Karl Iagnemma's novel "The Expeditions" is a brilliantly told tale, rich in details of history, place, and character. Iagnemma understands his characters and their situation deeply, and with critical sympathy. Their story, for all its oddity or strangeness, seems normal or natural or almost every-day. It is a novel that invites re-reading, and maybe another re-reading.

Bert Hornback

Iagnemma's work is both historically significant AND accurate. This novel outshines many other historical fiction adventures I've read. I liked this book as much as, or more than, James Fenimore Cooper's works. The characters are contrasted perfectly, the nature and beauty of the Expedition through 16 year-old Elisha's eyes is poignantly portrayed in this coming of age novel. It is hard to believe this is a first attempt novel. This novel has captured, as a first novel, the beauty, historical importance, literary accuracy, and character development that many seasoned writers cannot accurately portray! I just received my MA in American History, and I'm really not a fan of fiction of any kind. But, I thought I would give this novel a try. I am so glad I did! This novel really helps you escape your daily routine, teaches you something (the religiously burned over areas of ante-bellum America and a new sense of nationalism), and truly captured my attention. I am not one to be able to read with the TV or radio on, however, nothing distracted me from Iagnemma's novel. The scene by the fire in the trapper's cabin in upper Michigan is one I won't soon forget: This is what great novels are made of. Move over, Mr. Cooper. Mr. Iagnemma: I can't wait for more!

This book did not meet my expectations. The story is interesting but not captivating. The author's writing style is choppy with too many random thoughts. The result is a book that does not flow, which required a great deal of work to try to stay immersed in the story. I am glad that this expedition over!

It's 1844 and sixteen year old Elisha Stone is set to join an expedition of northern Michigan. Don't expect this book to start fast because it doesn't. I know I sound like a broken record but I couldn't attach myself to the story or any characters. I felt nothing. A big hindrance with this book is the author's use of punctuation, namely the colon. I'm not sure I've ever seen a colon used so much. Just when the reading gains some momentum, boom, there's a colon and a list of few things. Time and again this happens. Picture them as huge speed bumps. They make it difficult to get through this story that already lacks for something interesting. You can either be a good writer, story teller or both. I'm not seeing either here.