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Afterlands
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.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
32 people are currently reading
554 people want to read
About the author
Steven Heighton
39 books74 followersSteven Heighton (born August 14, 1961) is a Canadian novelist, short story writer and poet. He is the author of ten books, including two short story collections, three novels, and five poetry collections.[1] His most recent novel, Every Lost Country, was published in 2010.
Heighton was born in Toronto, Ontario, and earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degree, at Queens University.[2]
Heighton's most recent books are the novel Every Lost Country (May 2010) [3] and the poetry collection Patient Frame (April 2010).[4]
Heighton is also the author of the novel Afterlands (2006),which appeared in six countries.[5] The book has recently been optioned for film. Steven Heighton's debut novel, The Shadow Boxer (2001), a story about a young poet-boxer and his struggles growing up, also appeared in five countries.[6]
His work has been translated into ten languages and widely anthologised.[7] His books have been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Award, the Journey Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and Britain’s W.H. Smith Award (best book of the year).[8] He has received the Gerald Lampert Award, gold medals for fiction and for poetry in the National Magazine Awards, the Air Canada Award, and the 2002 Petra Kenney Prize. Flight Paths of the Emperor has been listed at Amazon.ca as one of the ten best Canadian short story collections.[9]
Heighton has been the writer-in-residence at McArthur College, Queen's University and The University of Ottawa.[10] He has also participated in several workshops including the Summer Literary Seminars, poetry work shop, in St. Petersburg, Russia (2007), and the Writing with Style, short fiction workshop, in Banff, Alberta (2007).[11]
Heighton currently lives in Kingston, Ontario with his family.[12]
Heighton was born in Toronto, Ontario, and earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degree, at Queens University.[2]
Heighton's most recent books are the novel Every Lost Country (May 2010) [3] and the poetry collection Patient Frame (April 2010).[4]
Heighton is also the author of the novel Afterlands (2006),which appeared in six countries.[5] The book has recently been optioned for film. Steven Heighton's debut novel, The Shadow Boxer (2001), a story about a young poet-boxer and his struggles growing up, also appeared in five countries.[6]
His work has been translated into ten languages and widely anthologised.[7] His books have been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Award, the Journey Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and Britain’s W.H. Smith Award (best book of the year).[8] He has received the Gerald Lampert Award, gold medals for fiction and for poetry in the National Magazine Awards, the Air Canada Award, and the 2002 Petra Kenney Prize. Flight Paths of the Emperor has been listed at Amazon.ca as one of the ten best Canadian short story collections.[9]
Heighton has been the writer-in-residence at McArthur College, Queen's University and The University of Ottawa.[10] He has also participated in several workshops including the Summer Literary Seminars, poetry work shop, in St. Petersburg, Russia (2007), and the Writing with Style, short fiction workshop, in Banff, Alberta (2007).[11]
Heighton currently lives in Kingston, Ontario with his family.[12]
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August 21, 2017
Displaced Persons
The book opens with a simple image of surprising potency: a piano recital in Connecticut in 1876 at which a ten-year-old girl plays some pieces by Mendelssohn. The girl, known as Punnie, is the daughter of an Inuit couple (here called Esquimaux, in nineteenth-century fashion) who have been taken to England as curiosities, presented to Queen Victoria, and most recently brought back to the Arctic as members of a near-fatal expedition in which a group of nineteen starving people marooned on an ice-floe drifted for six and a half months before being rescued. The de facto leader of that group, Lt. George Tyson, has written a book about their ordeal and is popular as a lecturer. Punnie is thus a local celebrity, but the skills which the audience applauds are not those of her native culture. The theme of displacement sounds throughout Steven Heighton's magnificent book as a powerful undertow.
Much of the novel is based on fact. In the central section, a 200-page description of the ordeal on the ice, Heighton quotes long excerpts from Tyson's actual book. But his main focus is on another character, a German immigrant named Roland Kruger, who served as second mate on the expedition. Once a minor celebrity also, Kruger becomes a pariah after the publication of Tyson's book, which portrays him as the villain of the piece, stealing from their precious stores, fomenting the men to near mutiny, and having inappropriate relations with Tukulito, Punnie's mother. But by skillfully contrasting excerpts from Tyson's journals with his published account, and setting both against his own storytelling, Heighton creates a shifting texture of overlapping narratives in which sympathies will change and change again.
Though led by an American, the expedition is peopled by expatriates: four Germans, a German-Russian, an Englishman, a Swede, a Dane, a Negro cook, four adult Esquimaux, and several children. It is chilling to see how, once the normal lines of authority break down, the men revert to their former nationalism, dominated by the German contingent (though not including Kruger), and rehearsing the history of the next seventy years in miniature. But eventually conditions on the rapidly-shrinking ice-floe take precedence over everything, and the moral lines shift again in the light of several striking acts of individual heroism.
Despite Heighton's excellent powers of description, this middle part can be tough going. But the most original part of the book is its extended final section, Afterlands, which traces the later story of Tyson, Tukulito, and especially Kruger, who moves as far away from the Arctic as possible, to live among the Sina Indians in the Western Sierra Madre of Mexico. Here, the theme of displacement takes on a different meaning as he (himself an emigrant from two countries in succession) encounters a kind of ethnic cleansing, as forces loyal to the central government or commercial interests attempt to exterminate the indigenous people from their lands. Kruger will find reserves of moral heroism that he did not know he had, and reach a kind of personal redemption. The ending of the book is as satisfying as it is sad.
Though written earlier, Afterlands has many similarities to Richard Flanagan's Wanting, which also links a story about arctic exploration to another about an aboriginal girl (in this case Tasmanian) brought to London as a curiosity. I have long recognized the theme of displacement as a major concern in Australian literature—both the displacement of the emigrants making a start in a new land, and the tragedy of the native inhabitants whom they displaced—so it is not surprising to see it in Canadian writing as well. It gives the literature of both countries a profound moral sensibility. I am also in awe of the many Canadian novelists who are also poets*—Michael Ondaatje, Anne Michaels, and Jane Urquhart also come to mind—and who not only write beautiful prose, but find in poetic structures new ways to organize a novel. This book by Steven Heighton is as allusive and thought-provoking as they come.
+ + + + + +
*See my review of Heighton's recent poetry collection, The Waking Comes Late.
The book opens with a simple image of surprising potency: a piano recital in Connecticut in 1876 at which a ten-year-old girl plays some pieces by Mendelssohn. The girl, known as Punnie, is the daughter of an Inuit couple (here called Esquimaux, in nineteenth-century fashion) who have been taken to England as curiosities, presented to Queen Victoria, and most recently brought back to the Arctic as members of a near-fatal expedition in which a group of nineteen starving people marooned on an ice-floe drifted for six and a half months before being rescued. The de facto leader of that group, Lt. George Tyson, has written a book about their ordeal and is popular as a lecturer. Punnie is thus a local celebrity, but the skills which the audience applauds are not those of her native culture. The theme of displacement sounds throughout Steven Heighton's magnificent book as a powerful undertow.
Much of the novel is based on fact. In the central section, a 200-page description of the ordeal on the ice, Heighton quotes long excerpts from Tyson's actual book. But his main focus is on another character, a German immigrant named Roland Kruger, who served as second mate on the expedition. Once a minor celebrity also, Kruger becomes a pariah after the publication of Tyson's book, which portrays him as the villain of the piece, stealing from their precious stores, fomenting the men to near mutiny, and having inappropriate relations with Tukulito, Punnie's mother. But by skillfully contrasting excerpts from Tyson's journals with his published account, and setting both against his own storytelling, Heighton creates a shifting texture of overlapping narratives in which sympathies will change and change again.
Though led by an American, the expedition is peopled by expatriates: four Germans, a German-Russian, an Englishman, a Swede, a Dane, a Negro cook, four adult Esquimaux, and several children. It is chilling to see how, once the normal lines of authority break down, the men revert to their former nationalism, dominated by the German contingent (though not including Kruger), and rehearsing the history of the next seventy years in miniature. But eventually conditions on the rapidly-shrinking ice-floe take precedence over everything, and the moral lines shift again in the light of several striking acts of individual heroism.
Despite Heighton's excellent powers of description, this middle part can be tough going. But the most original part of the book is its extended final section, Afterlands, which traces the later story of Tyson, Tukulito, and especially Kruger, who moves as far away from the Arctic as possible, to live among the Sina Indians in the Western Sierra Madre of Mexico. Here, the theme of displacement takes on a different meaning as he (himself an emigrant from two countries in succession) encounters a kind of ethnic cleansing, as forces loyal to the central government or commercial interests attempt to exterminate the indigenous people from their lands. Kruger will find reserves of moral heroism that he did not know he had, and reach a kind of personal redemption. The ending of the book is as satisfying as it is sad.
Though written earlier, Afterlands has many similarities to Richard Flanagan's Wanting, which also links a story about arctic exploration to another about an aboriginal girl (in this case Tasmanian) brought to London as a curiosity. I have long recognized the theme of displacement as a major concern in Australian literature—both the displacement of the emigrants making a start in a new land, and the tragedy of the native inhabitants whom they displaced—so it is not surprising to see it in Canadian writing as well. It gives the literature of both countries a profound moral sensibility. I am also in awe of the many Canadian novelists who are also poets*—Michael Ondaatje, Anne Michaels, and Jane Urquhart also come to mind—and who not only write beautiful prose, but find in poetic structures new ways to organize a novel. This book by Steven Heighton is as allusive and thought-provoking as they come.
+ + + + + +
*See my review of Heighton's recent poetry collection, The Waking Comes Late.
April 1, 2012
Three memorable historical figures are at the centre of this admirable historical adventure story, set in the last decades of the nineteenth century: Roland Kruger, German second mate hired for the 1871-72 Polaris expedition, his superior and increasingly his nemesis, Lt. George Tyson, and Hannah (Tukulito) Ebierbing, the first professional translator of the Inuit (then called Esquimau) language. During a heavy winter storm part of the Polaris crew is adrift in the passage between Greenland and Baffin Island. Canadian novelist Steven Heighton takes the historical accounts, Tyson's published book on the astounding six-months survival in the Arctic as the starting point for this extraordinary novel.
Superbly framed by an insightful introduction to the primary characters, and an extensive concluding section consisting of the three "after-stories", Heighton re-imagines the endurance and survival of a motley crew of different nationalities and two Inuit families, nineteen in total, caught with few supplies on an ice floe of constantly decreasing size, and shifting directions. Not surprisingly, the desperate conditions of the group, confined to a small space and struggling under extreme circumstances deteriorate to infighting, violence and unreasonable and even dangerous behaviour. The situation is exacerbated by the growing personality clashes between Tyson and the German crew on the one hand and between Tyson and Kruger on the other. By stark contrast, Tukulito, who plays a special role in the hearts of both, Tyson and Kruger, and her husband Ebierbing exude calm, patience and diligence. With previous experience as guide, hunter, cook they are the overall survival experts without whom the crew would perish.
With his outstanding aptitude for character development and for creating believable scenarios, the author juxtaposes selected excerpts from Tyson's book account (tweaked to suit the story line) with his own version of what might have happened during the six months on the ice. Inserting in addition several of Tyson's original field notes, thereby illustrating discrepancies in fact and tone to the book version, Heighton leads the reader to question Tyson's honesty and even his sanity. In fact, he presents the reader with two alternative realities, one increasingly diverging from the other. By contrasting Tyson's notes and book excerpts with his own version, the author gives a voice to different players, in particular Kruger, the only German with a inquiring mind and without strong allegiances. His behaviour, though, is seen with growing suspicion by the other crewmembers, including his and Tukulito's subtly courteous interactions.
The central section - the survival in the Arctic - may appear somewhat drawn out and long. However, careful reading opens the reader's eyes not only to the extraordinary dangers of the venture and shifting behaviour patterns among the crew, but also to subtle personality changes in the central characters. Tyson's admission that "it is never too late to become the man you might have been" does not only apply to him. Kruger's search for the other person in him is an ongoing struggle.
In fact, Kruger emerges as the most interesting and appealing character. He can be seen as a kind of moral compass for human behaviour in extreme crisis situations. His inner conflicts - between obeying authority and becoming a "patriot only to the truth", between duty and emotion - weave like a leitmotiv through his life and through the novel. Kruger has no longer country to believe in; he is "his own country". Still, the need to belong to a group cannot be easily suppressed. Committed to be understood as "a pacifist objector", his resolve is nevertheless fundamentally challenged by circumstances.
In the novel's major "Afterlands" section that compellingly closes the frame around the Arctic events, Heighton follows each of his three central characters as they continue their lives. Each has to live through more periods of external or internal tests before inner peace can even be seen as a possibility. Where historical records existed the author weaves them into his novel, as he does for Tyson and Tukulito. In the case of Kruger, where nothing much was known about his life, except that he left for the south, Heighton creates a most captivating and believable "after-story". Kruger, deeply disillusioned, ends up in the Sierra Madre region of Mexico, hoping for peace and a quiet life. Nobody, however, can easily jump out of his skin. Neither can Kruger escape more conflict, misunderstanding and abuse. At this stage, Heighton introduces new characters into the novel to complement Kruger's portrait. Among these, he introduces Kruger's new nemesis: the mysterious, highly intelligent and multilingual "Padre". Despite his high ideals, fed by French philosophers and admiring the German example, the Padre is, in effect, not a church representative, but a colonel and "an army onto himself". His function is to suppress the indigenous peoples in the region, to "pacify" the region and eliminate all who resist. Kruger's encounters with the Padre are memorable. He is forced to engage with his counterpart's game of power, control and his interpretation of progress. It forces Kruger to question his long-held belief of himself as a person, committed "to do no harm". How will he respond?
Heighton's exquisitely written novel is so very rich in narrative, characters and philosophical and moral questions raised that a review can only touch on selected essential points. In his most recent novel, Every Lost Country, the author further expands on some of these fundamental issues, yet set in a contemporary context. While at one level a captivating adventure story, Heighton's novel is also an invitation to the reader to reflect on the deeper questions that are so well woven into the story.
Superbly framed by an insightful introduction to the primary characters, and an extensive concluding section consisting of the three "after-stories", Heighton re-imagines the endurance and survival of a motley crew of different nationalities and two Inuit families, nineteen in total, caught with few supplies on an ice floe of constantly decreasing size, and shifting directions. Not surprisingly, the desperate conditions of the group, confined to a small space and struggling under extreme circumstances deteriorate to infighting, violence and unreasonable and even dangerous behaviour. The situation is exacerbated by the growing personality clashes between Tyson and the German crew on the one hand and between Tyson and Kruger on the other. By stark contrast, Tukulito, who plays a special role in the hearts of both, Tyson and Kruger, and her husband Ebierbing exude calm, patience and diligence. With previous experience as guide, hunter, cook they are the overall survival experts without whom the crew would perish.
With his outstanding aptitude for character development and for creating believable scenarios, the author juxtaposes selected excerpts from Tyson's book account (tweaked to suit the story line) with his own version of what might have happened during the six months on the ice. Inserting in addition several of Tyson's original field notes, thereby illustrating discrepancies in fact and tone to the book version, Heighton leads the reader to question Tyson's honesty and even his sanity. In fact, he presents the reader with two alternative realities, one increasingly diverging from the other. By contrasting Tyson's notes and book excerpts with his own version, the author gives a voice to different players, in particular Kruger, the only German with a inquiring mind and without strong allegiances. His behaviour, though, is seen with growing suspicion by the other crewmembers, including his and Tukulito's subtly courteous interactions.
The central section - the survival in the Arctic - may appear somewhat drawn out and long. However, careful reading opens the reader's eyes not only to the extraordinary dangers of the venture and shifting behaviour patterns among the crew, but also to subtle personality changes in the central characters. Tyson's admission that "it is never too late to become the man you might have been" does not only apply to him. Kruger's search for the other person in him is an ongoing struggle.
In fact, Kruger emerges as the most interesting and appealing character. He can be seen as a kind of moral compass for human behaviour in extreme crisis situations. His inner conflicts - between obeying authority and becoming a "patriot only to the truth", between duty and emotion - weave like a leitmotiv through his life and through the novel. Kruger has no longer country to believe in; he is "his own country". Still, the need to belong to a group cannot be easily suppressed. Committed to be understood as "a pacifist objector", his resolve is nevertheless fundamentally challenged by circumstances.
In the novel's major "Afterlands" section that compellingly closes the frame around the Arctic events, Heighton follows each of his three central characters as they continue their lives. Each has to live through more periods of external or internal tests before inner peace can even be seen as a possibility. Where historical records existed the author weaves them into his novel, as he does for Tyson and Tukulito. In the case of Kruger, where nothing much was known about his life, except that he left for the south, Heighton creates a most captivating and believable "after-story". Kruger, deeply disillusioned, ends up in the Sierra Madre region of Mexico, hoping for peace and a quiet life. Nobody, however, can easily jump out of his skin. Neither can Kruger escape more conflict, misunderstanding and abuse. At this stage, Heighton introduces new characters into the novel to complement Kruger's portrait. Among these, he introduces Kruger's new nemesis: the mysterious, highly intelligent and multilingual "Padre". Despite his high ideals, fed by French philosophers and admiring the German example, the Padre is, in effect, not a church representative, but a colonel and "an army onto himself". His function is to suppress the indigenous peoples in the region, to "pacify" the region and eliminate all who resist. Kruger's encounters with the Padre are memorable. He is forced to engage with his counterpart's game of power, control and his interpretation of progress. It forces Kruger to question his long-held belief of himself as a person, committed "to do no harm". How will he respond?
Heighton's exquisitely written novel is so very rich in narrative, characters and philosophical and moral questions raised that a review can only touch on selected essential points. In his most recent novel, Every Lost Country, the author further expands on some of these fundamental issues, yet set in a contemporary context. While at one level a captivating adventure story, Heighton's novel is also an invitation to the reader to reflect on the deeper questions that are so well woven into the story.
December 31, 2017
Purity is the mother of evil. p353
Based on the true calamity of the Arctic explorer Polaris cast adrift in 1871 with 19 men women and children on an ice floe, one might be pardoned for assuming that the reading would be only bleak.
Such is the intensity and scope of SH's writing that the sensitive reader no less than the adventurer
has no trouble being drawn in to this tense situation.
...a raft of consciousness adrift in the impassive...night. p157
Based on the true calamity of the Arctic explorer Polaris cast adrift in 1871 with 19 men women and children on an ice floe, one might be pardoned for assuming that the reading would be only bleak.
Such is the intensity and scope of SH's writing that the sensitive reader no less than the adventurer
has no trouble being drawn in to this tense situation.
...a raft of consciousness adrift in the impassive...night. p157
August 20, 2011
"Afterlands","Steven Heighton"
"A novel based mostly on an incredible true survival story. I felt the historical facts so compelling there was no need to embellish upon them, and had difficulty visualizing events as the ice floe started breaking up."
"A novel based mostly on an incredible true survival story. I felt the historical facts so compelling there was no need to embellish upon them, and had difficulty visualizing events as the ice floe started breaking up."
April 15, 2018
An amazing read. More than just a fictional/factual account of the USS Polaris expedition to the Arctic, it eventually turns to a type of "Heart of Darkness" journey for the German survivor Roland Kruger in, of all places, Mexico. The "Afterlands" is what occurs to the three main characters Heighton has chosen to follow through on Hanna the Inuit woman, The aforementioned Kruger and Lieutenant Tyson, the leader of the expedition. Gret nose-to-the-page reading!
September 23, 2022
This book was based on the Polaris Expedition in 1872 off the coast of Greenland. Nineteen people, men, women and children were marooned on an ice floe for months in the winter. It is amazing that they survived. I did not like the lack of quotation marks.
August 13, 2024
I was really into this book and then I just stopped caring about the characters after a month or two on the iceberg.
October 9, 2012
Intense, and a fine exploration of what trauma mastery looks like!
"He never can resist a test. If none arises, he will find ways of engineering one. Without constant proofs of strength and competence he feels himself fading, shrivelling into soething less than hiself- less than solid. He must keep ramming himself up against the world to make sure he is all there." (21-22)
"Ramming himself up against the world" is such a perfect description of Tyson and Kruger, who find themselves at the end of an adventure where they thought they would lose their lives, both enamoured with the women who became a symbol of survival for them while at the same time a part of her dies with her loss after her return to "civilization" (won't elaborate here due to spoiler).
"How difficult it must be...for a native to put on airs, or to play the returning hero, when nobody can barge or strut into a room [in a snow cave]. Everybody crawls." (79)
A timely reflection on history, and how the writer becomes the hero and owner of the story to an extent. The characters are believable and well-written, and the social space taken up in the story is acutely consuming.
"He never can resist a test. If none arises, he will find ways of engineering one. Without constant proofs of strength and competence he feels himself fading, shrivelling into soething less than hiself- less than solid. He must keep ramming himself up against the world to make sure he is all there." (21-22)
"Ramming himself up against the world" is such a perfect description of Tyson and Kruger, who find themselves at the end of an adventure where they thought they would lose their lives, both enamoured with the women who became a symbol of survival for them while at the same time a part of her dies with her loss after her return to "civilization" (won't elaborate here due to spoiler).
"How difficult it must be...for a native to put on airs, or to play the returning hero, when nobody can barge or strut into a room [in a snow cave]. Everybody crawls." (79)
A timely reflection on history, and how the writer becomes the hero and owner of the story to an extent. The characters are believable and well-written, and the social space taken up in the story is acutely consuming.
January 1, 2012
This is the first book I've read as a result of a Goodreads recommendation, and I liked it. In the 1860s, 19 people were trapped on an iceberg in the North Atlantic for an entire winter with very little food and few supplies. The group included two Inuit families, German immigrants, and a black man. About half of the book took place in the Arctic, and the rest took place in the U.S. and Mexico after they survived their ordeal. It described, interestingly, what happens to people who are confined together in a small space with few resources, and I was also interested in how the book described the human desire for power.
October 20, 2011
Picked this up after reading Jennifer Niven's "Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic" about the Polaris expedition. I really loved that book. I really did not love THIS book. I never got used to the author's lack of quotation marks in conversations - very hard to follow. And he took enormous liberties by fabricating a life after the voyage for one of the German soldiers - a section that might as well have been, SHOULD have been, an entirely different book.
June 6, 2020
There was so much potential for this book. I expected it be about the Polaris and the struggles of the nineteen people stuck in the Artic. I mean there was that aspect but only for a portion of the book. All the characters were flat, so much so that I couldn't care what happened to any of them.
March 17, 2022
"Afterlands" is a quietly fascinating book. The story concerns the fate of a group of polar explorers, and Inuit natives, who survive a winter trapped on pack ice, traveling over 1200 miles in the process.
Based on a true story, "Afterlands" concerns itself with the resolution of the survival ordeal as it plays out over the course of the survivor's lives.
The book begins abruptly,like an iceberg suddenly standing out of a thick fog. The ship has departed and the crew is left on the ice to slowly come to the realization their ship is not returning.
Like ice, much of thd story looms below the surface, and the theme of the novel, the great questions being asked, come to a crystalline point in the person of Kruger.
Questions of nationality, loyalty, and the explorer's role in the ruining of indigenous people's and lands sliwly emerge out of the stark arctic landscape.
The novel's resolution takes place far from the arctic,in another frontier of the era, depicting the adventurous opportunities in wilderness that characterized the late 19th century.
Kruger emerges as an iconic emblem of his era conflicted by the timeless questions: at what point is inaction complicit guilt?
What is the obligation to act, even to kill, if it is in the service of a greater good?
"Afterlands" is not the classic life on the ice daily survival log in the Shackleton vein. It is a novelist's meditation on the cost, the toll, of surviving.
Based on a true story, "Afterlands" concerns itself with the resolution of the survival ordeal as it plays out over the course of the survivor's lives.
The book begins abruptly,like an iceberg suddenly standing out of a thick fog. The ship has departed and the crew is left on the ice to slowly come to the realization their ship is not returning.
Like ice, much of thd story looms below the surface, and the theme of the novel, the great questions being asked, come to a crystalline point in the person of Kruger.
Questions of nationality, loyalty, and the explorer's role in the ruining of indigenous people's and lands sliwly emerge out of the stark arctic landscape.
The novel's resolution takes place far from the arctic,in another frontier of the era, depicting the adventurous opportunities in wilderness that characterized the late 19th century.
Kruger emerges as an iconic emblem of his era conflicted by the timeless questions: at what point is inaction complicit guilt?
What is the obligation to act, even to kill, if it is in the service of a greater good?
"Afterlands" is not the classic life on the ice daily survival log in the Shackleton vein. It is a novelist's meditation on the cost, the toll, of surviving.
September 7, 2021
The book is divided into two major parts. The first follows the long drifting journey that follows the accidental marooning of a portion of a ship's crew during an expedition to the North Pole. This portion is a partially fictionalized story based partly on the lead officers published account. Over the many months the crew was cast away oin the ice floe, there were rivalries and power grabs. There were very limited rations, and theories explaining the looting and hoarding of supplies.
The lead officer's account blames ther looting on a second mate, Kruger, ruining his reputation and driving him away. The second half of the book is largely concerned with his attempts to recreate his life in Mexico, where he establishes a family and loses them to Cholera and is then conscripted into a rogue platoon of the Mexican army, b ut ends of fighting against them.
The book is largely about the interplay between characters who have been forced into desperate situations, playing the odd on what are truly life or death issues. While at times this leads to a flurry of action, the forces they vie against are mostly slow moving - death by thirst, starvation and exposure.
The lead officer's account blames ther looting on a second mate, Kruger, ruining his reputation and driving him away. The second half of the book is largely concerned with his attempts to recreate his life in Mexico, where he establishes a family and loses them to Cholera and is then conscripted into a rogue platoon of the Mexican army, b ut ends of fighting against them.
The book is largely about the interplay between characters who have been forced into desperate situations, playing the odd on what are truly life or death issues. While at times this leads to a flurry of action, the forces they vie against are mostly slow moving - death by thirst, starvation and exposure.
September 1, 2020
This book is well written and easy to read. I stumbled accross this historical incident when reading "In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette". I was very curious that I had never read about this curious incident before.
I really enjoyed the first half od the book. The author did well bringing the whole situation to life and creating historical characters based on the available information.
One thing I did not like was the parts of the second half that were totally made up. I figure the author could have just saved 80 pages not writing a fictional account of Kruger in Mexico instead of just making stuff up.
All in all I enjoyed reading the book.
I really enjoyed the first half od the book. The author did well bringing the whole situation to life and creating historical characters based on the available information.
One thing I did not like was the parts of the second half that were totally made up. I figure the author could have just saved 80 pages not writing a fictional account of Kruger in Mexico instead of just making stuff up.
All in all I enjoyed reading the book.
December 26, 2023
I should probably like this book more than I did, but something about the premise–doing historical fiction on figures that aren't necessarily famous, one of whom is Indigenous–just didn't quite feel right. Heighton's accomplished facility as a poet leads to some beautiful and lyrical writing, but at times it felt overly wordy or fussy. That fits with the writing style of the time period, but tends to leave me cold.
The book feels very well-researched and passages are certainly gripping, particularly a number of passages of life on the ice, and Kruger's largely/wholly invented coda in Mexico.
The book feels very well-researched and passages are certainly gripping, particularly a number of passages of life on the ice, and Kruger's largely/wholly invented coda in Mexico.
July 15, 2024
Great story of survival in the arctic. 19 crew members of the Polaris on an arctic expedition in the 1870’s, get stranded on an ice floe and must survive for 7 months through the winter. Facing starvation, illness (both physical and mental) and in-fighting these American, European and Inuit, men, women and children somehow make it back to civilization. It’s a true story, fleshed out with fiction by Heighton. Fascinating and well written but I could have done with a bit less of the post-rescue story. Was about 100 pages too long.
October 21, 2020
Definitely a lot of research went into this, so mad props. Parts were quite interesting, but parts really dragged.
January 4, 2023
last quarter felt unnecessary with kruger’s life after the event; writing before was pretty good and well-paced, interesting; lack of quotation marks made it difficult to follow
December 31, 2023
Research combined with a powerful imagination make this a compelling read. Caution: wear a sweater.
May 28, 2015
This historical fiction was a refreshing change from some of the heavy reading our book club was doing.
The story is based on the Polaris Expedition to the North Pole in 1871 during which 19 people were cast adrift on an ice flow and survived from October to April.
History has records of Tyson, the leader of the failed expedition, and Hannah, the Inuit woman who played a large role in the survival of her castaways. Kruger has been painted by Tyson as one of the main troublemakers and mutineers. Others have contradicted Tyson's viewpoint and paint him as willing to help in any of the mishaps. The author builds his story around this person and his possible role in the ordeal and his life following the rescue.
I enjoyed this book. Not only was it a good story, it was informative.
I would recommend that a person read up on the Polaris Expedition prior to reading the book. The book does have details about the expedition, but prior knowledge gives a framework for the fictional part of the story.
The story is based on the Polaris Expedition to the North Pole in 1871 during which 19 people were cast adrift on an ice flow and survived from October to April.
History has records of Tyson, the leader of the failed expedition, and Hannah, the Inuit woman who played a large role in the survival of her castaways. Kruger has been painted by Tyson as one of the main troublemakers and mutineers. Others have contradicted Tyson's viewpoint and paint him as willing to help in any of the mishaps. The author builds his story around this person and his possible role in the ordeal and his life following the rescue.
I enjoyed this book. Not only was it a good story, it was informative.
I would recommend that a person read up on the Polaris Expedition prior to reading the book. The book does have details about the expedition, but prior knowledge gives a framework for the fictional part of the story.
August 14, 2014
Afterlands, set in the 1870s, dramatizes the plight and the aftermath of explorers and seamen of different nationalities stranded on a shrinking ice-pan. In the true-life story of the Polaris expedition Heighton has found the perfect metaphor from which to explore the bankruptcy of nationalism and colonialism. He vividly depicts the way in which Aboriginal culture is appropriated and misrepresented after the event. Inuit hunters keep the Europeans and Americans alive somewhat against the odds but this does not prevent the triumphalist commander from smearing them as savages when he publishes his account of the adventure. The trauma ends up dividing the survivors into those who can live only away from western "civilizations" and those who cling to all-too-brittle notions of Victorian virtue.
September 14, 2013
Great book - about a disastrous voyage in the Arctic aboard the Polaris (a fictional account of a true story.) Fascinating account of the hardships they faced, the personal relationships, the extreme conditions. Also historical aspects of their survival that were totally unexpected by me - one crewman a former slave, several German citizens who were distrusted by the British crewmen, the distrust of the seamen for the Inuit who saved their lives. All of great interest and wonderfully written.
April 5, 2008
This book started out well-- a captivating story of a group of 19 individuals trapped on an ice floe in the Arctic. Unfortunately, that part of the story (the part based on historical records and actual events) took up only about half of the novel. The rest was a slow, somewhat implausible invention-- the author's idea of what may have happened to some of the individuals after being rescued from the floe. It went from being a book I couldn't put down to a book I was reluctant to pick up.
February 22, 2012
I enjoyed this one, though not quite as much as Shadow Boxer (which now lives on my list of all time favourites). The language in Afterlands seems much more spare, cold, and slow. Of course, thinking it through later, I realized that actually fit the story perfectly, since it's about a group of people who are trapped on an iceberg - it's cold, it moves slowly, and it is completely barren. Makes sense!
December 9, 2011
An epic adventure story, complex characters, historical tale of an Arctic whaling mission gone wrong and the aftermath of suffering and endurance. It stretches on through the resulting tumultous years in Mexico, New England and Canadian Arctic, embracing the Inuit girl and mother, so central to the survival of the sailors.
August 14, 2014
I had been told this book was hard to finish, so my expectations were not disappointed. The story line did fascinate me and was mostly plausible. The style of writing was at times disconcerting but certainly set the mood and pace of what is essentially a story about the darker side of humans in a dark place and time.
By no means a "couldn't put it down" read but thought provoking and different.
By no means a "couldn't put it down" read but thought provoking and different.
November 16, 2008
Since I have more interest in polar exploration, & none at all in the Spanish-American war, which is what the majority of this book pertains to, I did not even finish reading this book. I found the title, cover, & marketing of this book very misleading, & the book itself extremely boring.
May 5, 2012
OK, I tried again, but the mishmash of Tyson's diary and other points of view are too muddling for me.
After reading "The Solitude of Thomas Cave" I wasn't ready to read another arctic survival story that didn't grab me right off the bat--and this one did not.
After reading "The Solitude of Thomas Cave" I wasn't ready to read another arctic survival story that didn't grab me right off the bat--and this one did not.
June 19, 2016
This book really started out slowly for me. As I got more into it, it started to entertain me more. The characters developed more and drew me in. All and all it was a very entertaining and educational book as far as the history it told. I really loved Hannah!
April 5, 2007
This book has the honor of being perhaps the worst novel I've ever read -- painful from start to finish. I might actually pay someone to take it off my shelf because I'm embarrassed I own it.
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