TO THE BRIGHT EDGE OF THE WORLD by EOWYN IVEY (2016)

To the Bright Edge of the World is one of those books that I read really slowly because I did not want it to end. Books like this are the reason I am addicted to reading. I am always looking for my next literary "high"--a novel I can fall into and believe in so completely that I forget the rest of the world.

Ivey tells the story of the 1885 exploratory journey of Colonel Allen Forrester and two companions through the uncharted wilds of Alaska and of his wife Sophie's journey of self-discovery as she waits for him back home. Along with their alternating diary accounts, Ivey also includes a few diary entries from other participants, as well as photographs, news articles, maps, and a framing story of letters from a Forrester descendant who has donated the material to an Alaska museum. The result is an account that seems absolutely true. Each "writer" has his or her own voice and reveals aspects of character which would be normally hidden from the world. These became real people to me.

Colonel Forrester's diary narrates a suspenseful and harrowing confrontation with the Alaska landscape in all its danger and wild beauty. This tale could have constituted an adventure story all by itself. Sophie's diary tells of her quietly courageous confrontation with the expectations for women by society of the time. This, also, could have consumed an entire novel. The two strands are brought together by the fact that through their disparate journeys the two learn some of the same lessons.

Throughout the accounts, Ivey inserts incidents of magical realism: a newborn baby found underneath a tree with the umbilical cord being the root, a shape shifting shaman who becomes a raven, ghosts of the dead in a mountain pass. Surrounded as these incidents are by realistically described activities, they become especially believable. Magic still existed at "the bright edge of the world."

I could add many other praises here, such as the book has lovely sentences and clever composition and a stellar plot, but it is perhaps enough to say that it enchanted me. It is probably not the one that will win the most awards for books published in 2016, but it will most likely be the one I most enjoyed reading.