Afterlands (TPB) (OM) - Softcover

Heighton, Steven

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241143470 ISBN 13: 9780241143476

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, 2006

Synopsis

Novel based on a true-life story of an 1871 Arctic expedition.

About this title

Review:

"Afterlands is a superb work of the imagination -- a blend of fact and fiction that is handled with grace and mastery. The shifting landscape of the narrative is perfectly paralleled by the shifting Arctic landscape and the wildly changing fate of the hapless souls trapped on the ice floe. This is Heighton at his best."
--Helen Humphreys, bestselling author of The Lost Garden"
"Afterlands is a sprawling adventure story, part epic of Arctic endurance, part Mex-western, a Lost in the Barrens meets The Magnificent Seven kind of book, with an unrequited love affair between a German seaman and an Inuit matron to add passion to an already passionate book. At the heart of Afterlands is an ambiguous hero, the disgraced German sailor Roland Kruger whose true-life bravery has inspired Heighton to create a complex, brooding, rebellious and mysteriously gentle central character. Afterlands is full of unforgettably dramatic moments: the tubercular Inuit girl Punie performing Mendelssohn in a New England concert hall, a gorgeous bear-bull fight in a Mexican plaza, and the long night when the men anchor their remaining whaleboat with their own bodies as the ice-floe sinks and frigid waves dash over them."
--Douglas Glover, Governor General-winning author of Elle: A Novel
Praise for Steven Heighton:
"Steven Heighton is one of the finest writers in this country."
--Barbara Gowdy, author of The Romantic
"One of the best writers of his generation, maybe the best."
--Al Purdy
"He is like a young Ondaatje . . . a superb craftsman at ease in foreign places and distant times."
--"The Globe and Mail
"Heighton is a heavyweight . . . a master of realist narrative. Theresult is a genuine, hard-fought lyrical beauty that transcends fashion."
--"The Vancouver Sun
"A bravura performance, intense and poetic . . . The Shadow Boxer fizzes with life and energy, and has a swaggering, larger-than-life quality."
--"Independent on Sunday (UK)
"Fluid, rhythmical, full of force and grace, his sentences compel you to keep reading."
--Wayne Johnston
"Heighton is one of our most ambitious and prodigiously talented writers. . . . For those who roll their eyes at the prospect of another historical novel from a young CanLit star, rest assured that Heighton's purpose here is not to dazzle with research, but rather to find characters at the boundary points in history, those rare moments when the tectonic plates of different cultures grind against one another and threaten destruction."
-"Quill & Quire

"From the Hardcover edition.

"ƯA¨ dramatic, visually stunning tour-de-force."

Selected as a Best Book of the Year by Globe & Mail, National Post, Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen, and others

"A terrific read...Heighton excels in telling a tale of hardship, madness, love, loyalty, and sacrifice." --Irish Examiner

"Terrific...this novel's scale, its delight in detail, and its psychological insight make it an exceptionally satisfying adventure."

"A rich tale...a story of grand human passions...a subtle portrait of qualified heroism and ambiguous villainy." --Sunday Times (South Africa)

"A masterpiece, packed to the rafters with sumptuous language, sweeping vistas, contained fury, sorrow, and unrequited love." --Daily Express (UK)

"Superb...There's nail-biting adventure, unforgettable character studies, lessons about the resurgance of nationalism in today's post-9/11 world." --Ottawa Citizen

"Compelling, vividly imagined, and written in rich and precise prose...But the real force of the book comes from the currents of history -- of young nations rising and ancient civilizations ebbing -- that run just below the surface."

"[A] dramatic, visually stunning tour-de-force."

"A big, ambitious literary adventure tale full of blood, gristle, and soul...Afterlands conveys in stark yet beautiful prose the awful reality of what happens both on the ice and in [the soul]."

"Skillfully constructed, beautifully written...Afterlands is a superior example of a rare breed: the literary adventure story." --Book World The Washington Post
"A big, ambitious literary adventure tale full of blood, gristle, and soul...Afterlands conveys in stark yet beautiful prose the awful reality of what happens both on the ice and in [the soul]." Guardian
"A magnificent novel about the wreckage of history -- both the history that happens to us and the versions of it we create." The New York Times Book Review
"A sophisticated, densley layered fictional exploration of survival, love, betrayal, adn the personal cost of history...a novel of big ideas and beautiful language." The New York Times Book Review
"Compelling, vividly imagined, and written in rich and precise prose...But the real force of the book comes from the currents of history -- of young nations rising and ancient civilizations ebbing -- that run just below the surface." The Financial Times of London
"Unforgettable...a big, wide, deep book...an intensely felt fiction." The Globe and Mail
"A masterpiece, packed to the rafters with sumptuous language, sweeping vistas, contained fury, sorrow, and unrequited love." --Daily Express (UK)
"A terrific read...Heighton excels in telling a tale of hardship, madness, love, loyalty, and sacrifice." --Irish Examiner
"A wonderful, whiteout epic." Gentleman's Quarterly
"A rich tale...a story of grand human passions...a subtle portrait of qualified heroism and ambiguous villainy." --Sunday Times (South Africa)
"Superb...There's nail-biting adventure, unforgettable character studies, lessons about the resurgance of nationalism in today's post-9/11 world." --Ottawa Citizen
"A shattering read." Men's Journal
"[A] dramatic, visually stunning tour-de-force." Kirkus Reviews
"Terrific...this novel's scale, its delight in detail, and its psychological insight make it an exceptionally satisfying adventure." Publishers Weekly
Selected as a Best Book of the Year by Globe & Mail, National Post, Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen, and others

Synopsis:

It is 1871 and a thwarted voyage across unchartered waters to plant the American flag at the North Pole has cast nineteen survivors adrift on an ice floe off the coast of Greenland. Afterlands is the story of this small society of castaways - one white and one black American, five Germans, a Dane, a Swede, an Englishman, and two Inuit families - as they struggle with the elements and, increasingly, with each other. While suffering the deadly hardships of cold and hunger, they succumb to equally destructive suspicions, mutiny, hunger-induced delusions and unrequited longings, and their ordeal is one that will cast a shadow over the rest of their lives? Based on a true story and suffusing the drama of Arctic survival with a harrowing psychological intensity, it explores allegiance and betrayal, the sacrifices needed for survival and the ultimate cost of loyalty.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0241143470
• ISBN 13: 9780241143476
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416