Northernmost: A Novel

It is no small feat for an author to weave two separate stories together. For the first three chapters, I was uncertain about reading further—but it was well worth the time to have the stories come together in a thematic way. Peripherally, the story includes the great Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who is as much a hero in the setting of Minnesota as in his home country of Norway. The descendent of Nansen is not the main character in the book. He is the spouse of the main character, who also is descended from a Norwegian hero, Odd Einar Eide. Odd Einar’s exploits compare with the Arctic exploits of Nansen, but that is where the similarity ends. The story is about the ice around one’s heart, how generations of tragedy can form a fatalistic family narrative. We do not know why, after a twenty-year marriage, Greta Nansen cannot relate to or admire her adventurous husband. They have two children, who are also peripheral to the story. Greta travels to Norway where she reconnects the disjointed family history and finds herself. We can see how the next novel will tell the story of the husband, Frans Nansen.