Review – The Seal Wife by Kathryn Harrison

The Seal Wife – Kathryn Harrison

Fourth Estate Fiction

Kathryn Harrison’s latest novel is set in Anchorage, Alaska. The year is 1915. Bigelow, product of an emotionally starved upbringing, has been ordered by the Weather Bureau for whom he works, to open up for them in Alaska.  He must set up a weather forecasting station in the frozen frontier town of Anchorage, a town with it’s feet still in the mud, without a port, with only a handful of women and over 3,000 men.

Industrious and intent, Bigelow sets about his task, aware of the privations and poor pay but insufficiently mature at 27, to do anything about either. Life becomes immeasurably richer when he meets the Aleut woman who is mute.  Or perhaps not mute, but vocally uncommunicative. She allows him to avail himself of her body but her rigid boundaries and her silence torment his days. When she disappears without warning, taking everything she owns, he is beside himself with the loss and while she never strays far from his obsessive thoughts, Bigelow is obliged to meet his sexual needs in other ways.

The Seal Wife provides a platform for Kathryn Harrison’s brilliant characterisation.  Bigelow stands out, a black silhouette against the harsh backdrop of the pioneer’s Alaska while the Aleut woman, by her very stillness, raises a shadow, a spectre of other worlds, alien minds. The writing is seamless – no lumps over which to stumble.

It’s not a book I’d shout out to the world, but it is definitely one I recommend.  A strong, quiet keeper with it’s psycho-erotic overlay.  A very enjoyable read.

Review published in Good Reading Magazine