To the Bright Edge of the World: A Novel
Eowyn Ivey's novel fictionalizes an 1885 expedition up Alaska's Wolverine River through journals, letters, and photographs. Colonel Allen Forrester leads the party inland while his pregnant wife waits at the Vancouver barracks, and the narrative moves between their two worlds with the patience of a book that knows landscape is the main character. The humans are cold, frightened, or in love with someone they cannot reach; the land remains indifferent and watchful, measuring the smallness of their plans against its distances.Back Bay's paperback edition presents the novel in a tall, generous format, appropriate for a story that wants room to breathe. Ivey draws on the historical record without pretending to solve its silences. It is historical fiction that trusts its reader to notice what is left unsaid.
