Oprah.com “Fresh Pick for Your Fall Book-Club Meeting”
“Gratifyingly defies expectations.” —New York Times Book Review
“Why Your Book Club Will Love It: There’s one hell of a woman on this harrowing Arctic adventure. You'll want to invite her to your next gathering. . . . Move[s] so quickly, you’ll be calling each other halfway through the month, just to chat about the ending.” —Oprah.com
“James uses the sublime appeal of the Arctic and the extreme situation of his characters as the stage for an essentially domestic psychological novel. . . . The prose matches the landscape, rigorously unadorned, returning the gaze of a reader led into a world without hiding places.” —Guardian
“Although [The Surfacing] initially appears to focus on the unwinnable crusade of man against nature, at its centre is a love story—not a romance between adults but between a father and the son he learns to love. . . . A moving reminder that some of the biggest journeys in life don’t involve going anywhere at all.” —Financial Times
“As much Jack London as Daniel Woodrell. . . . James cleverly fashions a tense, controlled work that is bolstered by weighty research.” —Irish Examiner
“A stunning historical novel. . . . A chiseled, cool work of poetic brilliance. . . . A mesmerizing novel about never-ending ice, bitter cold, shipwrecks and fatherhood.” —Shelf Awareness
“A rare blend of adventure narrative and literary fiction, survival story and philosophical musing. . . . What emerges is a pure and transcendent vision of the joy of fatherhood.” —Historical Novels Review
“Hypnotic . . . a slow-burning psychological study. . . . Underneath all the ice, there is real emotional depth.” —Kirkus Reviews
“James’s sharp prose and attention to detail . . . leaves a lasting impression.” —Publishers Weekly
“An extraordinary novel, combining a powerful narrative with a considered and poetic use of language in a way that is not often seen these days. Reading the book, I recalled the dramatic natural landscape of Jack London and the wild untamed seas of William Golding. Cormac James’ writing is ambitious enough to be compared with either.” —John Boyne
“The great topic of Cormac James’ The Surfacing is the reach of human possibility. The prose is calm, vivid, hypnotic, and acutely piercing. James is attuned to the psychological moment: this is a book about fatherhood and all its attendant terrors. James recognizes the surfacing of love in the face of solitude. It’s a remarkable achievement, a stylish novel, full of music and quiet control. This is a writer that I’d like to see hurry—I’m looking forward already to the next book.” —Colum McCann
“Cormac James’ writing is very assured, with a harsh poetic edge. His evocations of barren landscape, sea weather, pack ice, and frozen skies are powerful and compelling.” —Rose Tremain
“I read The Surfacing in Gjoa Haven, where Franklin Expedition spirits seem to cry out on the winter winds, and Cormac James’ writing spoke through the midday twilight with the chill of a voice from the distant past. Like the High Arctic world that he masterfully conjures, his storytelling is beautifully stark and captivating. The Surfacing lures with the tundra’s promise: new life can come from death.” —Paul Watson, former Arctic correspondent for the Toronto Star and author of Ice Ghosts: the Epic Hunt For the Lost Franklin Expedition
2015-03-21
An Arctic expedition gets stuck at sea with a pregnant woman hiding onboard in Irish author James' hypnotic North American debut that's less a high-stakes adventure than a slow-burning psychological study. In 1850, a European crew sets off toward Arctic waters in search of Sir John Franklin's recently lost Northwest Passage expedition. The dangers involved for Lt. Morgan and his crew are clear: the water could freeze around them; the boat could be crushed by the ice. They could get lost—there'd be no one to rescue them. When a broken rudder forces the crew to stop at an island off the coast of Greenland for repairs, Morgan finds himself involved with the local governor's sister, Kitty, a woman trapped by the island and desperate to escape. Their courtship, if it can be called that, is a cold one, and when the rudder is fixed, Morgan has no intention of looking back. But once the ship is again at sea, one of the crew makes a discovery: Kitty has stowed herself away on the boat—and she's pregnant with Morgan's child. There's little feeling between them at first: for all practical purposes (save one), the two are strangers. But as Kitty's pregnancy progresses and Morgan comes to terms with his impending fatherhood, he begins to see her—and himself—in a new light. James expertly captures both the terror and the overwhelming boredom of sea life, of being stuck in the ice, of having nothing to do but the monotonous and sometimes impossible task of staying alive. Cold and unmoving at the start, James' characters—Morgan and Kitty, the ship's doctor, the cook, the elderly captain, and all the rest—slowly become fully, tragically human. Meditative and spare, this is not a fast read but one worth the effort: underneath all the ice, there is real emotional depth.
