In 1913, three explorers are dispatched to chart the Antarctic island of Everland, with disastrous results; in 2013, a trio of researchers attempts to repeat the expedition. Polar calamity ensues. This novel recalls Andrea Barrett’s stories of scientific camaraderie, but carries its knowledge less easily, with characters who tend to speak in technical exposition. Sometimes, though, Hunt achieves a neat, desolate poetry—a glacier is “a crumpled stole,” the cold “an encompassing, unsolvable misery.” As the two narratives draw together, Hunt makes much of uncanny conjunctions: injuries, obsessions, and personality traits echo across a century and produce a harrowing story about the timelessness of ambition and human frailty.
