The seal wife : a novel

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Title:

The seal wife : a novel

Author:

Harrison, Kathryn.

ISBN:

9780375506291

9781841157795

Personal Author:

Harrison, Kathryn.

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

224 pages ; 25 cm

Abstract:

Sent north to Anchorage, Alaska, to establish an observatory in 1915, Bigelow, a young scientist, finds himself unprepared for the loneliness of a frontier railroad town and becomes driven by his all-consuming love for an enigmatic woman known as the Aleut.

Subject Term:

Kites -- Design and construction -- Fiction.

Meteorological stations -- Fiction.

Meteorologists -- Fiction.

Mute persons -- Fiction.

Kites -- Design and construction. (OCoLC)fst00987948

Meteorological stations. (OCoLC)fst01018423

Meteorologists. (OCoLC)fst01018436

Mute persons. (OCoLC)fst01031157

Geographic Term:

Anchorage (Alaska) -- Fiction.

Alaska -- Anchorage. (OCoLC)fst01212412

Genre:

Psychological fiction.

Love stories.

Historical fiction.

Fiction. (OCoLC)fst01423787

Psychological fiction. (OCoLC)fst01726481

Electronic Access:

Sample text http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/random045/2001048979.html
Contributor biographical information http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/bios/random053/2001048979.html
Publisher description http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/random0415/2001048979.html

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:VCDBN	1:GEN-BOOK	000127086	HAR	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Stunning, hypnotic, spare, The Seal Wife is the masterly new novel by Kathryn Harrison, "a writer of extraordinary gifts" (Tobias Wolff). Set in Alaska in 1915, it tells the story of a young scientist's consuming love for a woman known as the Aleut, a woman who never speaks, who refuses to reveal so much as her name. Born and educated in midwestern cities, Bigelow is sent north by the United States government to establish a weather observatory in Anchorage. But what could have prepared him for the loneliness of a railroad town with more than two thousand men and only a handful of women, or for winter nights twenty hours long? And what can protect him from obsession--obsession with a woman who seems in her silence and mystery to possess the power to destroy his life forever, and obsession with the weather kite he invents, a kite he hopes will fly higher than any has ever flown before and will penetrate the secrets of 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 convention. As she brilliantly reimagines the terrain of the Alaskan frontier during the period of the First World War, Harrison, a "master of her material" (Mary Gordon), also evokes early efforts to chart the weather and reveals the interior realm of the psyche and emotions--a human landscape that, in its splendor and terror, is profoundly and eerily reminiscent of the frozen frontier and the storms that scour its face.

Summary

From the author of the bestselling THE BINDING CHAIR comes an extraordinary tale of desire set in the snowfields of 1917 Alaska.