Publishers Weekly - Audio
12/05/2016
This tale of Alaskan adventure is really three interwoven stories in one: first, the 1885 diary of Col. Allen Forrester, who leads an expedition up the Wolverine River to explore the then-uncharted wilderness of Alaska; second, the simultaneous diary of his pregnant wife, Sophie, left in the Vancouver Barracks to await his return; and lastly, the modern-day framing story, told in letters between Walt, the grand-nephew of the colonel, and Josh, caretaker of an Alaska history museum, who Walt hopes will take the journals and other artifacts and create a museum exhibit around them. Reader Lakin’s rendition of Sophie is the standout performance in this multiple-actor effort: her bright, lively, expressive voice perfectly conveys Sophie’s intelligence, curiosity, and spunky spirit. Glouchevich has a gravelly voice that is well suited for Walt, and he varies his tone enough to differentiate him from Josh. As Forrester, Vandenheuvel sounds earnest and observant but he maintains the same calm, even, slightly whispery tone at all times, even when recounting moments of high danger and intensity on the expedition. This audiobook will appeal to those who enjoy stories of exploration or the tales of Jack London. A Little, Brown hardcover. (Aug.)
Publishers Weekly
★ 06/13/2016
An 1885 wilderness expedition, a female pioneer of photography, and Native American myths come to life make Ivey’s second novel (after The Snow Child) an entrancing, occasionally chilling, depiction of turn-of-the-century Alaska. Through diaries, letters, reports, newspaper clippings, drawings, and photographs, Ivey evokes an Indian Wars veteran’s expedition up the Wolverine River into Alaska’s northern interior. Colonel Allen Forrester’s mission is to map the territory, make contact with inhabitants, and collect information for future (military or commercial) enterprises. While his wife, Sophie, remains in Vancouver, Forrester sets off with the intellectually gifted Pruitt and Sergeant Tillman, a rough-and-tumble miner’s son. Others joining the party include a trapper, his partner, a Native American woman who claims to have slit her husband’s throat, and a dog. But the strangest traveling companion, more nemesis than guide, is an old Native American known as the Man Who Flies on Black Wings, who is reputed to be a raven who can take the form of man. Bogged down by the terrain and his own ignorance, loosening ties to civilization if not reality, Pruitt succumbs to memories, and Forrester refuses to shoot wild geese fearing they may be humans in animal form. Sophie, meanwhile, learns to use a camera, building her own darkroom and a hunter’s blind to photograph bird nests in the wild. Years later, a descendant of the Forresters donates their journals and artifacts to a museum in the small town now on the expedition route, site of rafting tours and a million-dollar fishing lodge. In this splendid adventure novel, Ivey captures Alaska’s beauty and brutality, not just preserving history, but keeping it alive. Agent: Jeff Kleinman, Folio Literary. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
"The real journey in Eowyn Ivey's new novel transcends the physical landscape to a netherworld of magical, mysterious and sometimes diabolical proportions."—Betty J. Cotter, Providence Journal
Library Journal - Audio
★ 01/01/2017
Walter Forrester, a self-described "stubborn old man" without living relatives, contacts Alaska museum curator Joshua Sloan with an offer to donate numerous effects of his great-uncle Lt. Col. Allen Forrester and Forrester's wife, Sophie. In 1885, Allen Forrester embarked on a formidable mission to chart the Wolverine River, leaving newly pregnant Sophie in Vancouver Barracks, WA. The colonel's notebooks reveal the expected life-threatening challenges—lack of food, potentially hostile Natives, invincible nature—but also his shock from experiencing inexplicable, otherworldly occurrences. Meanwhile, Sophie distances herself from the stifling army encampment society while waiting for baby and husband, turning to the still-new art of photography to engage her independent mind. Interwoven with Walter and Josh's developing epistolary exchange are the pioneering couple's journals and letters; additional newspaper articles, army documents, and official artifact descriptions add further illumination. Loosely based on Col. Henry Allen's 1885 expedition into Copper River, Ivey's superb narrative is aurally enhanced by an excellent triumvirate of narrators: John Glouchevitch and Kiff Vandenheuvel take turns as 19th-century explorers and 21st-century correspondents, and Christine Lakin crisply embodies the spirited, ahead-of-her-time Sophie Forrester. VERDICT An outstanding follow-up to Ivey's Pulitzer finalist debut, The Snow Child, World is an essential, enlightening acquisition for all historical fiction collections. ["The personal nature and the immediacy of the writing puts the reader in the heart of the story, allowing one to become a participant rather than a mere observer": LJ Xpress Reviews 7/22/16 starred review of the Little, Brown hc; a 2016 LJ Top Ten Best Book.]—Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC
Library Journal
03/01/2016
As evidenced by her New York Times best seller, The Snow Child, also a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Ivey writes with an arresting blend of near-mythic sensibility and gorgeous, soaring exactitude that she should put to good use in this second novel. In the chill of an 1885 Alaska winter, Lt. Col. Allen Forrester launches an expedition up the unforgiving Wolverine River, intent on assessing the country's newly acquired territory and indigenous peoples. He's desperate to get the job done and return to his pregnant wife, but the Alaskan wilds aren't called wild for nothing. With a 100,000-copy first printing.
AUGUST 2016 - AudioFile
This audiobook tells a haunting and haunted story of a late-nineteenth-century Alaskan expedition to the uncharted Wolverine River, a territory full of physical and psychic, even supernatural, dangers. It is vividly imagined and cleverly structured, juxtaposing diaries, letters, and official expedition reports with the contemporary voices of those, white and Native Alaskan, involved in preserving and curating those documents. Unfortunately, the voice of the expedition leader, Col. Allen Forrester, a battle-hardened Civil War veteran and western campaigner, is given in a soft, whispery tone, more Mr. Rogers than John Wayne. The letters and diary of his young wife, Sophie, are marred differently, by a faux-fancy “Masterpiece Theater” accent that serves no purpose. Still, the story is original and compelling, well worth the listen. B.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2016-05-17
A husband and wife explore separate but parallel frontiers in the wild Northwest of the late 1800s.Ivey's superb second novel (The Snow Child, 2012) is mainly composed of two braided journals. One is by Allen, an Army colonel who fought Apaches in Arizona in the 1860s but by 1885 has a gentler temperament and wants to explore the Wolverine River in southern Alaska. The other is by his wife, Sophie, who'd be eager to join him if it weren't for know-your-place lectures from fellow Army wives. Allen and his small band endure a host of familiar travails—scarce food and ammunition, bad weather, skeptical natives. But his secret, unofficial diary also includes more surrealistic experiences, like a discovered newborn baby whose umbilical cord is connected to a tree root. Back at the Army barracks, Sophie discovers she's pregnant but soon miscarries—most likely due to the opium tinctures prescribed by her condescending doctor—and discovers photography as a way to navigate through her grief. Ivey means to say that Allen and Sophie are equally pioneering to the extent that society of the time allowed them to be, but first and foremost this is an exceptionally well-turned adventure tale, rich with Allen's confrontations with brutal snowstorms and murky underwater beasts and Sophie's more interior efforts to learn her craft and elbow local busybodies out of her way. Brief, poetic entries and sketches by a member of Allen's cohort give the story a series of lyrical grace notes, and Ivey anchors the tale in present-day correspondence between Allen's great-nephew and the curator of a museum to whom he's sent Allen's journals. Those letters make an elegant and affecting argument that though the territory is tamer now, not everything that makes it spiritually inspiring has been thawed out and paved over. Heartfelt, rip-snorting storytelling.
