FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Set in Alaska in 1915, it tells the story of a young scientist's consuming love for a woman known as the Aleut, a woman who never speaks, who refuses to reveal so much as her name." Born and educated in midwestern cities, Bigelow is sent north by the United States government to establish a weather observatory in Anchorage. But what could have prepared him for the loneliness of a railroad town with more than two thousand men and only a handful of women, or for winter nights twenty hours long? And what can protect him from obsession - obsession with a woman who seems in her silence and mystery to possess the power to destroy his life forever, and obsession with the weather kite he invents, a kite he hopes will fly higher than any has ever flown before and will penetrate the secrets of the heavens?

FROM THE CRITICS

New Yorker

In previous books, Harrison has leaned toward the lurid -- incest, the Spanish Inquisition, Chinese foot-binding -- but here she offers a more muted tale, set in Alaska in the early nineteen-hundreds. A lonely meteorologist named Bigelow yearns for female companionship, and it comes in slippery forms: a silent Aleut who skins animals before sex; a chatty prostitute who obligingly wears a gag during intercourse; a shopkeeper's daughter who stammers so violently that she communicates only through written notes. For all the eccentricity of its characters, however, the story remains inert; Harrison seems less interested in Bigelow's torment than in her own thoughts on the unpredictability of desire.

Publishers Weekly

Obsessions are Harrison's forte (The Binding Chair, etc.) and here she plumbs the mind of a young man deprived of companions, diversions and even the basic amenities of civilization who develops a passion for a woman whose very remoteness feeds his desire. In 1915, 26-year-old Bigelow Greene is sent to establish a U.S. weather station in Anchorage, a primitive settlement where the sled dogs howl all night in the 20-hour-long winter darkness. Bigelow is asingle-minded man; he first becomes obsessed with the idea of building a huge kite to measure air temperature high in the atmosphere and thus enable long-range forecasting. But he's soon smitten with a woman the locals call the Aleut. She's mysterious, enigmatic, virtually mute sex between she and Bigelow is wordless and when he discovers that she's left Anchorage, Bigelow almost goes mad with longing. Eventually, he succumbs to the lure of another woman, Miriam Getz, the daughter of the storekeeper. She, too, is mute by choice, and she proves to be a demon, the very opposite of the self-contained Aleut. Bigelow is caught in her trap. As Harrison describes the black loneliness of winter and the mosquito-infested summer days, the mood grows darker and more suspenseful, emblematic of Bigelow's desolate psyche. In perfect control of the spare narrative, Harrison writes mesmerizing, cinematically vivid scenes: Native American laborers fascinated by Caruso recordings; the gigantic kite nearly dragging Bigelow to his death off a cliff and, later, soaring into the turbulent sky of a rousing storm. Given these ominous events, and for those who know the Celtic legend of the seal wife, the ending is all the more surprising. Author tour. (May) Forecast: Harrison's excellently assimilated research about the early days of weather forecasting and about the conditions in Alaska during WWI add credibility to a novel about the inner landscape of desire. This double appeal should spark good sales. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Harrison researched 1915 Alaska and the history of weather forecasting for this book and captures the loneliness of the landscape of Bigelow's weather observatory in a railroad town where men far outnumber the women. Bigelow's dreams of a monstrous kite to help him monitor the weather patterns aloft are both comic and tragic, but, ultimately, this fails as a novel of desire. The third-person narration by Fred Stella doesn't allow the listener to enter the true intimacy of Bigelow's thoughts. The women, who are almost more symbolic than real-Aleut will not speak to him, and Miriam can only write her needs and thoughts-are potentially far more interesting than Bigelow. Not recommended.-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile

Harrison's strange and haunting novel, based in remote turn-of-the century Alaska, places the greatest challenges on a narrator. It offers only the slenderest of story lines, the obsessive love of a young meteorologist named Bigelow for an Aleut woman who will not speak to him, and, other than their lovemaking, hardly recognizes his presence at all. At the same time that he pursues this passion, Bigelow is preoccupied by a parallel consuming desire that tests him just as severely—to build a weather kite that will fly higher than any kite before. Fred Stella's reading, precise, earnest, and wise, makes us attend carefully to Harrison's lyrical writing and to her exploration of a man's fevered psyche. M.O. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews