Overview

A MAJOR AMERICAN NOVEL - A WORK OF ASTONISHING POWER, RANGE, AND VISION A New York Times NOTABLE BOOK and Winner of THE OHIOANA BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION An epic tale of obsession, endurance, and discovery, fully imagined and intricately layered, Antarctic Navigation combines the sweep of the great Victorian novels with the metaphysical and philosophical weight of Moby-Dick, offering a journey both exhilarating and profound. Its narrator and protagonist is a rare and marvelous character in contemporary literature - a complex, contradictory woman driven by a wildly heroic obsession. Morgan Lamont has been haunted since childhood by the story of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who died on the ill-fated British Antarctic expedition of 1910-1912. As a young woman, she gathers a group of eccentric but brilliant companions, each uniquely suited to the brutal physical and psychological demands of recreating Scott's polar journey. With the unexpected backing of her estranged and imperious grandfather, she launches the Ninety South Expedition, determined to retrace Scott's journey to the Pole - but this time, without loss of life. What ensues is both a classic heroic quest and a passionate love letter to the natural world. At once a gripping adventure and a work of splendid intellectual depth, Antarctic Navigation is an unforgettable novel - one that invites us into the mind of an extraordinary woman and the last great wilderness on earth. Arthur's prose, both lyrical and meticulous, carries readers deep into the physical realities of polar travel - its dangers, its austerity, its terrible beauty - and just as deep into humanity's pressing need to navigate the new and the unknown. Because of its length, Antarctic Navigation is being published in two volumes, including as an e-book. With a Foreword by Elizabeth Arthur's husband, Steven Bauer.

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9781969498336

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Reviews

""A triumph of the novelist's art."" Publisher's Weekly, (boxed and starred) ""A tale of yearning and discovery as vast and crystalline as the continent it portrays....spiritually rich and unfailingly dramatic ....a remarkable blend of romance, high adventure, science, and philosophy, a heady mix not unlike Moby Dick in its depth, passion, and revelation, but with a distinctly end-of-the-millenium orientation. And Arthur's voice is all her own - resplendent, keen and full of wonder."" Donna Seaman, Booklist, (boxed and starred) 'This huge novel is filed with riches: the portrayal of Morgan's early years in Colorado, for instance, is so vividly imagined that it captures the true otherworldliness of childhood. The complex background of Morgan's Antarctic trek... is laid out with a sense of scope and ambition rarely seen in contemporary writing. These qualities alone make this novel compelling reading, but it is the way the enormous whole is informed with the knowledge of a life - Arthur's unabashed attempt to shape all that she knows into a book others can share - that makes her achievement truly astonishing. I was, quite literally, thrilled to be reading it."" James Mustich, A Common Reader ""Antarctic Navigation is a magnificent and enthralling novel, a real 'whale chaser', and Melville, I think, would be proud of the compari- son. Morgan Lamont is surely the strongest, most intelligent, and most passionate protagonist I've encountered in quite a while, and her story does what literature is suppose to do: sweep us away, hold us spellbound, and finally transform us."" Ron Hansen ""Fully imagined, rich with character and incident, Antarctic Navigation takes the reader on an unforgettable voyage of the mind and heart and body, Each sentence has been carefully tended, each scene care- fully wrought, and the result is a work of of luminous and lasting beauty."" Tim O'Brien ""The bleak and beautiful landscape of Antarctica provides the backdrop for this epic novel of adventure and self-discovery....In its whiteness and purity, its unforgiving nature, its status as the last unconquered place, Arthur finds metaphors to discuss colonialism, feminism, environmental planning, war, history, and science....A stunning novel that works on many levels . . . [and] tackles some of the most complex issues of our time."" Jean Blish Siers, Chicago Tribune ""A keenly imagined novel of a woman-led expedition to Antarctica that sets out to vindicate both the human spirit and Robert Scott, the famous polar failure. . . [Her] prose is both lyrical and perceptive about nature, heroism, and the splendid power of books to catch the imagination."" Kirkus Reviews ""Arthur writes so beautifully that the book is always a joy."" Boston Book Review

Author Information

Elizabeth Arthur is the author of five literary novels (Beyond the Mountain, Bad Guys, Binding Spell, Antarctic Navigation, and Bring Deeps) and two memoirs (Island Sojourn and Looking for the Klondike Stone.) Her books have been published by Harper and Row, Doubleday, Knopf, and Bloomsbury U.K. She has received fellowships and grants from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Ossabaw Island Project, and the Indiana Arts Commission. She twice received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and was the first novelist ever given an Antarctic Artists and Writers Operational Support Grant from the National Science Foundation. Her novel Antarctic Navigation was chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book. She is the co-author, with her husband Steven Bauer, of the 26 mystery/adventure novels in the New Three Investigators series (2025-2027.) Steven Bauer is the author of three books for young people, the young adult fantasy Satyrday, the middle grade novel A Cat of a Different Color, and The Strange and Wonderful Tale of Robert McDoodle, a picture book in verse. Bauer's writing has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He has also been given grants and awards from Prairie Schooner, the Ossabaw Island Project, the Massachusetts Arts Council, and the Indiana Arts Commission. He is the co-author, with his wife Elizabeth Arthur, of the 26 mystery/adventure novels in the New Three Investigators series (2025-2027.)

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