Afterlands

by Steven Heighton

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 061877341X
• ISBN13: 9780618773411
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A geat look at the nature of reality and truth

Heighton did a great job of vigorously researching a real historical event, and giving his own interpretation of it. The book is itself and is littered with the repeated questions: "What is real?" "What really happened?" "What can I know is true?" A great story with a great theme of the interpretation of events, both past and present.

A flawless, multi-faceted gem of a book.

I consistently read upwards of 50 books a year. Afterlands is definitely the best book I have read so far this year, and I cannot imagine another one being better for me in 2009. It is now up there in my opinion with the greats, like Alias Grace, and As The Crow Flies, and Libra, and stuff like that. I don't even know where to start, [a great synopsis of the book is shown, above]. It's really two novels in one. The Arctic episode. The Mexican episode. After the Arctic portion of it, the author follows the protagonist Roland Kruger into Mexico, and to further adventures so epic in scope that, as I say, it is almost like reading a second novel. Yet all remains so intertwined [woven], so intricately connected to the themes of displacement and alienation, peril and rescue. Love and loss. Kruger emerges a hero, but not a super-hero. There is not one aspect of this novel that is flippant. Nothing is under or over cooked. And let's face it, both things can give one indigestion. It is a thriller, a page-turner, a stay-awaker, but not a potboiler. Because it is based on actual events, it could be considered historical fiction, yet does not have the feel, in any typical sense, of the genre. The perfect blend of wild invention and bone-numbing reality. The white bird, an albino vulture, slouches in a niche in the canyon wall, like statuary in a satanic chapel. Its bald gory head is half turned away, as if feigning disinvolvement or anonymity. [p.320] Come on now! That is gorgeous, perfect, writing. And the whole entire book is that good. A lyrical, word-perfect gem. It's a perfect ten of a book and had me riveted from start to finish. I encourage you one and all, Afterlands cannot disappoint you.

This was a good book.

This book was surprisingly good. It wasn't like anything I'd read before, but I enjoyed it.

Wow! This guy can write.

I'll tell you up front, I'm only a third of the way through this book. However, I am continually blown away by the way Mr. Heighton weilds the written word. SOme people try to write the way he does and its just flat and verbose. He gives life to these characters and to this story the way hot air fills out a multi-colored balloon and lifts it high into far blue sky. I am awed.

after Afterlands...

A fantastic story written well. I was afraid I was going to lose interest after the main plotline seemed to end 2/3rds of the way through and the author had to start inventing his own story a bit more, but it only got better. Recommended.