Fram

by Steve Himmer

Fram is the story of Oscar, a minor bureaucrat in the US government's Bureau of Ice Prognostication, an agency created to compete with the Soviets during the heyday of the Cold War and still operating in the present without the public's knowledge. Oscar and his partner Alexi are tasked with inventing discoveries and settlements in the Arctic, then creating the paperwork and digital records to “prove” their existence, preventing the inconvenience and expense of actual exploration. The job is the closest Oscar has come to his boyhood dream of being a polar explorer, until he and Alexi are sent on a secret mission to the actual Arctic, which brings them into a mysterious tangle of rival agencies and espionage that grows more dangerous the farther north they travel.

Genres: Fiction, Weird Fiction, Science Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mystery

248 pages, Paperback

First published December 29, 2014

About the author

Steve Himmer is the author of the novels The Bee-Loud Glade, Fram, and Scratch (coming 2016). His short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Millions, Ploughshares online, Post Road, Los Angeles Review, Hobart, and other anthologies and journals. He edits the webjournal Necessary Fiction teaches at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Steve]

I'm not going to review this, because I wrote it so what do I know?

[Join the Penguin Resistance! · Rating 5 out of 5]

REVIEW: FRAM by Steve

FRAM is an enduring literary novel, a testimony to imagination and dreams, to character and unshakable optimism. Strewn throughout is the persistent undercurrent of ironic humor at the expense of bureaucracy. (Specifically Federal, but really, bureaucracy everywhere: anywhere that reality doesn't matter but the recorded perception of reality does). To achieve such testimony, protagonist Oliver, a middle-aged married employee in the Federal Bureau of Ice Prognostication, is abruptly summoned to fulfillment of his lifetime dream, as he is sent to the Arctic he has never seen, but of which he has always dreamed (and whose virtual reality he has for years manipulated). Now the way is open for Oliver's becoming, with an unforgettable and inspiring closure.

[Nancy Freund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently I've seen several references to the value of entrepreneurs and artists courting 1,000 true fans instead of casting a wide net and hoping their work will please everybody. A true fan evidently is someone who will read everything a writer writes, always look at it with depth and clarity, and hang in till the end. Consider me one of Steve Himmer's one-thousand. I have never met the man in person, but I feel like I know his generosity of spirit well -- his work with the Creative Writing students at Emerson, his editorship of Necessary Fiction, and his kindness in supporting emerging writers, including me. His debut novel 'The Bee-Loud Glade' is one I've recommended over and over. Even describing the story line of his decorative hermit in that novel is always a joyful experience. I think Steve Himmer embodies what it means to be a good literary citizen, and this new novel is a gift.
'Fram' has the stamp of Steve Himmer all over it. There's no hermit here, but isolation and aloneness and "otherness" are very much central to Oscar's story. So too is a total "weirdness of place" and the sense that someone not entirely trustworthy is in charge... same as in 'The Bee-Loud Glade.' This time trade the greenery of the glade for relentless white of the arctic circle. Yet it's not a cold story. Oscar's journey isn't a lonely one, even when he is discovering betrayals and new layers of intrigue as he goes... mostly against his will. Oscar is a loyal mid-level government bureaucrat with self-confessed "polar fever" or an extreme love of all things arctic. His obsession is taking a toll on his marriage and his nearly nonexistent friendships, but it fits well with his career in the secret Bureau of Ice Prognostication. Every day he invents and re-invents a history of arctic exploration for the American government. (More cost effective than actual exploration, of course, and just as useful). Little does Oscar know how close he is coming to writing some dangerous true stories into his fictions. Soon, he finds himself at the center of a wild ride, complete with guns and hunters, bears and bombs, snowmobiles and space heaters, and a cross-section of history and fiction that leaves both Oscar and the reader reeling. Never though does the reader worry unnecessarily about Oscar's fate -- Himmer's narrator speaks directly to the reader now and then to calm the nerves. It's a brilliant story-telling technique and much appreciated in its strategic use. It's why I chose to start this review with a comment on the writer himself rather than on the writing. In some books, the writer is entirely invisible. In this one, he's in the novel, and we're glad.
Steve Himmer has been compared to David Foster Wallace, and I think that's right. He has a depth of perception about work-life balance that takes his fiction to a higher level. I think he must surely be compared to Murakami, in the same way his protagonist ends up on a confusing journey toward a goal the reader might never fully grasp, or certainly won't fully begin to grasp till the end. For a TV comparison, think "Twin Peaks" meets "Lost" during an episode of the new show "Fortitude." With a scene of two from 'Alice in Wonderland' thrown in for fun.
I read this novel in a cold February, when Steve Himmer's hometown of Boston is under many feet of snow. The whole experience of 'Fram' seems jarring and wacky, stuck fast and snowbound, yet always moving in the ice, in subtle, unceasing ways. Just right.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

This came as the first book of my Green Apple subscription. THANKS RIAH!!

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely the finest book about the Bureau of Ice Prognostication that I have ever read.

[Laine Cunningham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fram by Steve Himmer

Available January 13, 2015

I received an ARC from the publisher.

A fantastic romp with an ending that couldn’t make sense any other way. Oscar, a bureaucrat made dry and brittle by a life of paperwork and duplicate copies, lives in his imagination. He nurtures a childhood dream of being an arctic explorer, something he vicariously fulfills by working at the U.S. Bureau of Ice Prognostication, an agency created to counter the Soviet’s Cold War threat. The agency never died, nor did Oscar’s dreams.

He spends his days living those dreams by imagining what might be discovered in the Arctic then generating the reams of paperwork to prove that these “discoveries” are real. Towns, schools, mining companies and paper mills, even hot springs are all drawn onto the vast emptiness of the ice. At home, he communes with decades of old National Geographic magazines that trumpeted the original polar explorers’ journeys.

When Oscar is sent on an actual mission to this place he has only ever dreamed about, he becomes entangled in a snarl of espionage and rival agencies. As he digs deeper into the secrets and strangeness, he discovers that the arctic expanse of his marriage has been as important an element in his life as the actual region. At the end, readers will know that there could have been no other resolution to the bizarre journey that is Oscar’s life.

If you enjoy this story, you might also enjoy The Family Made of Dust: A Novel of Loss and Rebirth in the Australian Outback and Reparation: A Novel of Love, Devotion and Danger.

[Laura Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

FRAM rocks. This novel does everything--it thrills, it amuses, it worries, it dreams. Our hero, Oscar, works at the super-secret Bureau of Ice Prognostication where he is expected to imagine Arctic territories so successfully that their features, as he has invented them, become "real"--on paper at least. One of my favorite things about this book is Oscar's love and knowledge of all things Arctic, even though he's never been--not until he and his partner are sent on a genuine polar mission. It's out in the field that Oscar becomes embroiled in proper cold-war-style spy peril and eventually discovers that his wife Julia has secrets of her own. So that's the plot stuff. This is also a very elegant, surprising work of real grace and intelligence, where every paragraph is delightfully nuanced and rewarding. Regular readers of Himmer's work will recognize a few of the interstitial, lyric passages from previous publications.

[Avocados · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Steve Himmer were writing a spy movie, this is what it would be like. I loved the light touch he had to create a main character with such a big obsession who was treated with the right amount of compassion and realism. The action packed race to the pole was such a fun ride, it kept me peeking ahead. The polar bear scene was a little too sad and more violent than was necessary, but the interplay of technology and nature made this book sing. Looking forward to Himmer's next book!

[Helen McClory · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is the tender story of a marriage - or a Kafkaesque thriller on a journey to the frozen North? It's both. Meta and assured and funny. I was lucky to read the ms of this a while ago, and as I was reading again was happy to remember these unmapped places unfolding again in front of me. A book to read while going about your own journey (commute or baffling secret mission).

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was one of the lucky few who read this in manuscript form before it ever found a home. So thrilled to see it in actual, physical form!

[Charlie Newfell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky, fun read. This is one of those stories that you just need to go with the ride and enjoy where the story goes.

[Gabriel Soll · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me, this was a book of almosts. I almost was intrigued by the characters. I was almost drawn in by the plot. I was almost satisfied by a really awesome concept. I think my biggest complaint about every aspect of the book is that it didn't do enough (and in some instances did too much). I'm all for brevity, and for readers reaching their own conclusions without being spoonfed...but this was neither (and both, at times).

I really liked the concept of the Bureau of Ice Prognostication. The premise, even its execution had (perhaps HAVE) so much going for it. But I ended up wanting more out of it. Himmer had opportunities to poke at the Bureaucracy, but he didn't (or at least not enough...too cliched, IMHO).

I thought I saw opportunities for some real cleverness, and was excited (in fact the benefit of the doubt on this one was a driving reason I even finished the book...that and apparently Ive become one of those readers who cannot put a book down?) for them...but was left without. I didn't see the story as that complex or interwoven. The so-called "spy thriller" was completely kitsch (but not to the point of being self-referential or amusingly so).

I dunno, I hate to be a wet blanket and Himmer certainly has a following. I'd love to say this was just not the book for me...but I think it goes a little beyond that.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I thought it was going to be. If you want to read a profoundly weird story about an emotionally bereft protagonist with the unlikely personality combination of total cluelessness and extreme taking-up-space issues who makes his living inventing fake discoveries in the arctic for a clandestine government organization and is then is inexplicably sent there in the flesh for reasons that may or may not ever be made clear... this novel is for you. It's well-written in a very consistent, focused, zen-like way, rather like you've been handed a state-of-the-art telescope that focuses perfectly but only at one very specific distance, so you can't actually look around and figure out the big picture. Zimmer probably has a very thoughtful message to convey about broken systems, wasted potential, and misplaced ambition. I just didn't quite catch it.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fram was a very unique and surreal tale of a government worker for a top secret project of the Bureau of Ice Prognostication. Oscar is a dedicated office worker that suddenly is swept up into a real life adventure. Oscar loved thinking about the north pole and reading article on it from his collection National Geographic magazines. His favorite app on his phone was a north pole cam. Those details and many more create a very interesting and unique character. The imaginative writing was so engaging that look forward to reading Steve Himmer's next creation.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing. Not sure how I feel about the ending but it was appropriate.

[Lynne Fort · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes, I'll read a book and absolutely love it, but then I don't know who to recommend it to because it's such a weird novel. This is one such book. I love how cerebral this is and how it explores modern professional life, and I love the Arctic angle because like Oscar, I grew up with those stories and idolizing the great adventurers of history, so at least some of his mindset makes sense to me.

There's a plot in Fram, but it's not really the point of the novel. So if you want a linear, clear-cut story, don't pick this up. I'd recommend it to people who enjoy writing that focuses on a character's thoughts and feelings about their reality more than their actual reality. Pretty niche, but I know there are other readers like me out there.

[Peggy N · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read. A clerk and armchair adventurer in an obscure government office dreams of the Arctic...except his office is the Bureau of Polar Prognostication, and the stories he updates/invents for the files may be...coming true? A sly sense of humor and some spy-and eco-thriller elements add to the beautiful writing. The story delves into what it might mean to go to the ends of the earth - why some feel compelled to do so, and why others feel compelled to dream of it. Looking forward to reading more by this author!

[Myersakrawiec · Rating 1 out of 5]

I actually didn't finish this book. I got about 60 pages in and it just seemed like the author was still setting up the story. It took me a bit to realize that the reports the 2 bureacrats were writing were fake and that was the whole point of the office. I just couldn't wait any longer for the real stuff to start happening. I'm disappointed because I waited for this book and requested it from Interlibrary Loan, but there are too many good books out there that I haven't read to waste time trying to like this one!

[Charles Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea what to expect from this book. At first, I thought it was going to stick solely with its Kafkaesque narrative, watching this poor guy in his bizarrely impotent and concentrated bureaucratic nonsensical job just live, day to day, Severance-style.

AND THEN. To balance that out with a crazy thriller? Just awesome. This was twisty and fun and I had no idea where it was going ever. I'm glad books can still be surprising.

[Layla · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not often I read a book and think 'hmmm, that was quite odd.' And yet with Fram I couldn't quite figure out what to make of it. It is very much a book of two halves. I developed huge fondness for the main character, Oscar, a man whose obsessive love of the concept of the north pole (charmingly abbreviated by his longsuffering wife to PF, or Polar Fever), and his unquestioning bureaucratic dedication mean that Oscar has his dream government job at the bizarre Bureau of Ice Prognostication, complete with its ridiculous, meticulous processes and shroud of secrecy. He has a dream marriage too; however it is at risk of going sour. But then Oscar finds himself sent north on a secret, inexplicable mission fraught with peril that anyone with less bureaucratic dedication might find perturbing... Oscar is brilliant. I loved the first half of this book. But with his bizarre mission to the north pole, or somewhere like that, I started to love it a bit less. I got impatient reading it. There were questions that were never answered. I flicked through some bits about a hunter that I didn't quite get. It all turned into a strange sort of adventure which was entertaining, a bit inexplicable, and ultimately either hopeful or hopeless. I heard Steve Himmer speak about the book (and he was brilliant) and when asked about how it ended, he refused to reveal his intent. So whether pessimism or optimism... apparently that depends on the reader. Having heard him speak just before I finished it, and knowing his intent, this left me in a state of angsty lack of resolution.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm having a hard time with this one. I held off on rating and writing a review for a week thinking maybe this one would percolate for awhile. It didn't. I appreciate the satire of government departments, but I didn't find it all that clever. For most of the book, I was looking forward to the journey, but I figured out the gist of what was going to happen and I was just left underwhelmed at the end. I would like to rate this 2.5 starts.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what to think about this book. I picked it up because I thought the premise sounded interesting, and overall it did work for me. And I liked the writing. But in the end I didn't connect with the protagonist and I did not find the book compelling. I don't think there are faults for me to pinpoint in the book, but rather it just wasn't a book for me.

[Casey McDonagh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every book has an audience and I was just not it for Fram. I found myself extraordinarily bored. Halfway through and neither the main character nor I had any idea what was going on. I just could not get into this book.

[Suzan Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever, intricate story about life, love, marriage...and polar exploration. Suspenseful yet also thoughtful. Read my full review at:

http://bookbybook.blogspot.com/2015/0...

[Rhonda · Rating 2 out of 5]

An unusual read, to say the least. In my opinion, the auther tried too hard to create a sci-fi/existentialist read. I chose this book for a book club; no one liked the book, though we did have a lively discussion.