The Seal Wife

The Seal Wife

by KathrynHarrison (Author)

Synopsis

From the author of the bestselling THE BINDING CHAIR comes an extraordinary tale of desire set in the snowfields of 1917 Alaska. Bigelow is a scientist, meticulous and obsessive, a man of tightly coiled passion. Stationed in the tiny frontier town of Anchorage, Alaska in 1915, he builds a weather observatory, a kite big enough to penetrate the heavens, carrying instruments to track the great storms that scour the land. He is distracted from his labours when he meets a native Aleut woman, a stitcher of furs, whose muteness calls up in him an almost unbearable longing. Her ferocious self-containment begins to seem to him more and more animal -- and yet the more her silence pushes him away he burns to possess her. And when she disappears, he begins to believe he'll die if he never sees her again...An incendiary tale set against the sear and haunting landscape of the Great North, THE SEAL WIFE merges the enchantment of myth with a taut and chilling story of erotic compulsion.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Published: 05 Aug 2002

ISBN 10: 1841157791
ISBN 13: 9781841157795
Book Overview: In-store promotion: 12 copy dumpbin, poster. Consumer advertising: National broadsheets campaign. Consumer promotion: Author visit to the UK for major city tour to include media interviews, bookshop events and an appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Track Record: Sales of The Binding Chair now top 100,000 copies. (Temporary)

Media Reviews
Praise for A THOUSAND ORANGE TREES: 'A magical novel' Lisa Tuttle, Time Out 'Audacious feats of the imagination. This rich and complex novel is both harrowing and compelling.' Nicola Humble, TLS 'A rich deep well of stories as fantastic as dreams.' Anne Chisholm, Observer 'Superlative' Claire Messud, Vogue 'Kathryn Harrison writes about the dark side of a woman's destiny with an intensity that makes you shiver.' She 'Seductive, earthy, shocking and emotional.' Woman's Journal Praise for THE BINDING CHAIR: 'A spellbinding novel, ruthless, moving and utterly without sentiment.' Mail on Sunday 'The Binding Chair is a disturbing, beautifully plotted novel, intricate in its detail and panoramic in its sweep. It presents us with a world in which tragedy is natural and everyday, where beauty is a reminder of cruelty.' Daily Telegraph 'A vivid family saga. The characters come alive on the page. Harrison has convincingly captured the Shanghai of the early twentieth-century, a jarring, cacophonous, swarming city of possibility.' Evening Standard On Harrison's first memoir, THE KISS: 'One of the most startling books you are ever likely to read.' Gill Hornby, Observer 'I couldn't stop reading this. I'll never stop remembering it.' Mary Karr, author of The Liar's Club 'An unforgettable tale, a work of searing honesty, of immaculate literature.' Kate Figes, Independent on Sunday 'Remarkable for its candour, but also for its elegance, its sense of morality and its generosity of spirit.' Eliza Charlton, Sunday Telegraph 'Harrison writes like an angel.' Penny Perrick, The Times 'Remarkably moving.' Penelope Mortimer, Daily Telegraph 'Heartfelt, extraordinary ... This is a book that, once read, refuses to go away.' Marie Claire
Author Bio
Kathryn Harrison is the author of the novels THE BINDING CHAIR, EXPOSURE, A THOUSAND ORANGE TREES, and the memoir THE KISS, all available from Fourth Estate. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.