The Seal Wife [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [MP3 CD]

Kathryn Harrison (Author), Fred Stella (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2004

A stunning and hypnotic novel by "a writer of extraordinary gifts" [Tobias Wolff], The Seal Wife tells the story of a young scientist and his consuming love for a woman known as Aleut. In 1915, Bigelow is sent to establish a weather observatory in Anchorage, Alaska, and finds that nothing has prepared him for the loneliness of a railroad town of over two thousand men and only a handful of women, of winter nights twenty hours long. And nothing can protect him from obsession-both with a woman, who seems in her silence and mystery to possess the power to destroy his life forever, and with the weather kite he designs to fly higher than any kite has ever flown before, a kite with which Bigelow plans to penetrate and know not just the sky but the heavens. A novel of passions both dangerous and generative, The Seal Wife explores the nature of desire and its ability to propel an individual beyond himself and outside conventions. Harrison brilliantly re-creates the Alaskan frontier during the period of the first World War and in lyrical prose explores the interior landscape of the psyche and human emotions - a landscape eerily continuous with the splendor and terror of the frozen frontier, the storms that blow over the earth and its face.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Obsessions are Harrison's forte (The Binding Chair, etc.) and here she plumbs the mind of a young man deprived of companions, diversions and even the basic amenities of civilization who develops a passion for a woman whose very remoteness feeds his desire. In 1915, 26-year-old Bigelow Greene is sent to establish a U.S. weather station in Anchorage, a primitive settlement where the sled dogs howl all night in the 20-hour-long winter darkness. Bigelow is asingle-minded man; he first becomes obsessed with the idea of building a huge kite to measure air temperature high in the atmosphere and thus enable long-range forecasting. But he's soon smitten with a woman the locals call the Aleut. She's mysterious, enigmatic, virtually mute sex between she and Bigelow is wordless and when he discovers that she's left Anchorage, Bigelow almost goes mad with longing. Eventually, he succumbs to the lure of another woman, Miriam Getz, the daughter of the storekeeper. She, too, is mute by choice, and she proves to be a demon, the very opposite of the self-contained Aleut. Bigelow is caught in her trap. As Harrison describes the black loneliness of winter and the mosquito-infested summer days, the mood grows darker and more suspenseful, emblematic of Bigelow's desolate psyche. In perfect control of the spare narrative, Harrison writes mesmerizing, cinematically vivid scenes: Native American laborers fascinated by Caruso recordings; the gigantic kite nearly dragging Bigelow to his death off a cliff and, later, soaring into the turbulent sky of a rousing storm. Given these ominous events, and for those who know the Celtic legend of the seal wife, the ending is all the more surprising. Author tour. (May)Forecast: Harrison's excellently assimilated research about the early days of weather forecasting and about the conditions in Alaska during WWI add credibility to a novel about the inner landscape of desire. This double appeal should spark good sales.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Sent to frigid Alaska in the early 1900s to establish a weather observatory, a man finds hot passion as well.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• MP3 CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD Lib Ed; Library edition (June 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593354045
• ISBN-13: 978-1593354046
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,880,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Author Photo by Joyce Ravid.

Kathryn Harrison was born in 1961 in Los Angeles, California, where she was raised by her mother's parents. She is a graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers Workshop, where, in 1986, she met her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison. They had a first date on Friday, April 25, and on Monday, April 28, they moved in together. The Harrisons married in 1988, and live in Brooklyn with their three children. Kathryn writes novels, memoirs, personal essays, biography, and true crime. She is a frequent reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, and teaches memoir at Hunter College's MFA program in Creative Writing, in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Startling beauty, lonliness and isolation in 1915 Alaska, September 2, 2002

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Seal Wife: A Novel (Hardcover)

There's always a feeling of discomfort when reading a Kathryn Harrison book and "The Seal Wife" is no exception. It's set in Alaska in 1915, where winters are long and cold, mosquitoes are plentiful, and there are very few women. And so when Bigelow Greene, age 26, is sent there by the government to set up a weather station in Anchorage, he is lonely and disoriented. There's startling beauty here and a sense of isolation. Bigelow yearns for a woman and soon begins a relationship with a native woman he knows only as "The Aleut". He's completely obsessed with her, and adores her strength, her unpretentious sensuality and complete self-possession. The writing itself is sensual too; from the descriptions of how the woman butchers animals, to the erotic details of their coupling. The fact that she never speaks only adds to his passion for her. When she moves away, he is devastated.

Much of the book details this period of his isolation, in which he plunges himself into his work, building a unique kite which holds instruments and carefully measures the weather conditions. His need for a woman is overwhelming though and the reader feels his pain and isolation as he attempts to satisfy his raging feelings. Eventually, he connects with another women, who is also mute. Her other characteristics disgust him however. How this all plays out is fascinating and forced me to continue reading this spare 256-page book all the way through in a very short time.

The reader gets to know Bigelow intimately. I felt I was right there with him as he struggled to understand the weather, the landscape and his own emotional needs. There's a constant feeling of isolation and a metaphorical statement about the human condition. It's fascinating. And even though I've come to expect different and innovative settings for Ms. Harrison's novels, this one is unique in focusing entirely on one character's point of view. The result is an unsettling portrait of loneliness and alienation. Naturally I expected an unhappy conclusion. I was wrong. It was a pleasure to be smiling wistfully as I turned the last page.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Heart Of Darkness (and Light)...., July 7, 2002

By 

Eric McCalla "reviewboy" (Denver, COLORADO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Seal Wife: A Novel (Hardcover)

Kathryn Harrison's THE SEAL WIFE is far and away her finest work, and one of the finest works of fiction published this year. Written in a very spare style, Harrison doesn't waste a word, a paragraph or a chapter in telling this story of a US government scientist sent to the wilds of Alaska in 1915. Bigelow's assignment is to map the weather patterns of the area, where railroads and infrastructure are to be built, extracting the riches of gold, furs and other precious commodities. Bigelow embarks upon an ambitious quest to construct the biggest kite known, which will aid him in understanding the changeable nature of the region's weather. The kite itself becomes a metaphor for a man's quest for unattainable love, his desire to conquer nature, and the consequences of reaching too far outside one's known experiences in life.

Bigelow has three relationships through the course of the story: one with the kite, which consumes not only his intellect and emotions, but great periods of his time every day; a physical and strangely emotionally distant relationship with an Aleut woman whose name and background he never knows fully. Thirdly, he has another physical and highly emotional liaison with a young woman who communicates only through song.

Harrison's descriptions of the Alaskan frontier with all its vastness, great white blankets of snow and ice, and the long stretches of light and darkness bring the reader into Bigelow's setting like no other novel I can remember.

THE SEAL WIFE is the finest example of the novelist's craft! I would really, really like to see her write into a screenplay. This is a story of great drama veiled by the whiteness of Alaska, and the loneliness of a man's soul. Beautifully done, Kathryn Harrison!!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect, July 14, 2002

By 

J. Rosenberg "reggieroy" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Seal Wife: A Novel (Hardcover)

What more is there to say? As I read it, I forgot a person had created it. The events and characters are so real. I'm having difficulty putting my feelings about this book into words. It's as if the book existed without an author; her presence is nowhere felt, but everything that happens in the book is intensely true. I was particularly touched by the ending.

I enjoyed Harrison's book "The Binding Chair," too, but it was more realistic and more obviously "written." This one seems dreamed.