South Pole Station (Shelby)

South Pole Station 
Ashley Shelby, 2017
Picador : Macmillan
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250112828


Summary
DO YOU HAVE DIGESTION PROBLEMS DUE TO STRESS?
DO YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH AUTHORITY?
HOW MANY ALCOHOLIC DRINKS DO YOU CONSUME A WEEK?
WOULD YOU RATHER BE A FLORIST OR A TRUCK DRIVER?

These are some of the questions that determine if you have what it takes to survive at South Pole Station, a place with an average temperature of -54°F and no sunlight for six months a year.

Cooper Gosling has just answered five hundred of them. Her results indicate she is abnormal enough for Polar life. Cooper’s not sure if this is an achievement, but she knows she has nothing to lose.

Unmoored by a recent family tragedy, she’s adrift at thirty and—despite her early promise as a painter—on the verge of sinking her career. So she accepts her place in the National Science Foundation’s Artists & Writers Program and flees to Antarctica, where she encounters a group of misfits motivated by desires as ambiguous as her own.

The only thing the Polies have in common is the conviction that they don’t belong anywhere else.

Then a fringe scientist arrives, claiming climate change is a hoax. His presence will rattle this already-imbalanced community, bringing Cooper and the Polies to the center of a global controversy and threatening the ancient ice chip they call home.

A warmhearted comedy of errors set in the world’s harshest place, Ashley Shelby's South Pole Station is a wry and witty debut novel about the courage it takes to band together when everything around you falls apart. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1977
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Columbia University
• Awards—Third Coast Fiction Prize; William Faulkner Award-Short Fiction
• Currently—lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota


Ashley Shelby is a former editor at Penguin Books, prize-winning writer/journalist, and author of both fiction and nonfiction.

Born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Shelby received her MFA from Columbia University. She is the author of Red River Rising: The Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City (2003), a narrative nonfiction account of the record-breaking flood that, in 1997, devastated Grand Forks, North Dakota.

The short story that became the basis for her debut novel, South Pole Station (2017) is a winner of the Third Coast Fiction Prize.

Her work has been published widely, including in the Seattle Review, Post Road, Sonora Review, Portland Review, J Journal: New Writings on Social Justice, Sierra, Full Circle Journal, Babble, Gastronomica, Carve, and Southeast Review.

She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her family. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
For those who like stories that “turn up the heat” on off-beat personalities trapped in tight quarters, South Pole Station is super cool. It’s a worthy debut and a sign of a smart new novelist arriving on the scene. (By the way, be sure to take note of Cooper’s last name.)  READ MORE …
P.J. Adler - LitLovers


Entertaining.… The mechanics of the central plot — …astrophysicists squabbling over the Big Bang Theory… — are best not inspected too closely, although they do yield some nicely rebellious behavior …and a satisfying …nerd romance.… More appealing …are the back stories and posturings of the ensemble cast, whose day-to-day dramas provide a vivid notion of what it's like to live in a frigid landscape that's dark for six months of the year.
Alida Becker - New York Times Book Review


[An] enjoyable first novel.… Shelby is very good on social interactions at the end of the earth, and South Pole Station crackles with energy whenever science takes center stage
Dennis Drabelle - Washington Post


If you like literature that transports you to exotic locales beyond the reach of commercial airlines and enables you to view hot topics from cool new angles, South Pole Station is just the ticket.… Shelby's writing is pithy and funny …[and] in this unusual, entertaining first novel, [she] combines science with literature to make a clever case for scientists' and artists' shared conviction that "the world could become known if only you looked hard enough."
Heller McAlpin - NPR


Most associate [climate fiction] with 'sci-fi' and therefore sci-fi's most recognizable tropes.… But what if we expand the genre's definition to works that address issues of climate change in the here-and-now, in worlds that aren’t speculative or futuristic at all, but rather, unnervingly familiar? What we would find are some of the most urgent, funny, and beautifully written works in contemporary fiction. Case in point: Ashley Shelby’s South Pole Station.
Chicago Review of Books


Set in the vast yet claustrophobic reality of Antarctica, the novel's first delight is in its vivid depiction of sub-zero life.…The second delight is the clear message that science is not belief. It's science.… Shelby keeps more than a few story lines thrumming here, yet a keen eye for character and a sharp ear for smartass dialogue keeps the strands straight.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


This is a fascinating novel, loaded with interesting history of Antarctic exploration, current scientific operations, and the living and working conditions of those folks brave enough to endure six months of darkness and six months of daylight.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Shelby's first novel, based on a short story that won the Third Coast Fiction Prize, skillfully weaves science, climate change, politics, sociology, and art.… All readers of fiction, particularly those interested in life in extreme climates, will find [South Pole Station] appealing. —Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal


[Shelby] eschews easy choices and treats interpersonal relations, grief, science, art, and political controversy with the same deft, humorous hand. Readers will find characters to love, suspect, and identify with…. [F]or readers …who enjoy stories about quirky individuals and …armchair travelers.
Booklist


Throughout witty, often hilarious scenarios, Shelby expertly weaves in the legitimate political and environmental concerns…. Shelby's exploration of the human spirit continuously digs deeper, ever in search of answers to all of life's important questions—scientific and otherwise.
BookPage


In the messy human petri dish at the South Pole, a comic novel brews.… [S]mart and inventive…. Jokes lubricate a moving and occasionally preposterous story of love and death in the Antarctic cold.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. In her interview, Tucker prods Cooper for her motivation for going to the South Pole. She’s hesitant to say she desires "to be somewhere else" because that sounds like she’s "running from something." But Tucker responds that it’s not "running from something.… It’s turning aside.… Looking askance." Do you agree with Tucker’s assessment? Does this hold true for Cooper? For the other Polies?

2. Many of the Polies take issue with calling Pavano a "climate skeptic" because, as Sal says, "All scientists are born skeptics. Pavano is not a practicing scientist." Do you agree with Sal? Why or why not?

3. Though it’s eventually disproved, Sal poses a compelling theory about the origins of the universe, a "cyclic model" in which "every trillion or so years, the universe remakes itself as an echo of its previous form.… Every corner of space makes galaxies, stars, planets, and presumably life, over and over again." This model, he says, "has an explanation for 'what happened before the Big Bang.'" He proposes, "Instead of a single 'bang,' it was engaged in an endless cycle with endless variations." Cooper, however, poses the question of how this cycle begins, of what happens "before." What do you think of Sal’s theory? In what ways do you find it believable? How might you contest it?

4. Cooper spends much time trying to come to grips with David’s suicide. How do you see her working through his death throughout the novel? In what ways do you think she makes peace with his choice?

5. What do you think of Pearl’s ambitions in the kitchen? Did you root for her? Think she was manipulative? Both?

6. South Pole Station unfolds through various narrative perspectives — Cooper, Pearl, Tucker, Bozer, Pavano, even emails, and official government documents. How does having these multiple vantage points shape your sense of the community? In what ways would the story be different if we were only privy to Cooper’s perspective?

7. Congressman Bayless gives a speech in which he purports, "Dissent is the healthiest state of affairs in any democracy … democracy is under attack. That in a bastion of free thought, the covenant of free thought has been broken.… Dr. Pavano has been the victim of a systematic and sustained pattern of harassment based solely on his research." Sal’s rebuttal is that "in the scientific community, there’s virtually unanimous consensus that the earth is warming … instead of fearing this new knowledge … accept it, and leave science to science." How would you respond to both of these statements?

8. As an artist, Cooper’s role at the station is more nebulous than that of some of the other characters. Right before the standoff, Denise tells Cooper that her "paintings will remind the people here that they are not just cogs of the machine." How do you interpret Denise’s statement?

9. What did you think of Cooper’s reaction to her injury? How might you have reacted in her position?

10. Climate change is the subject of much debate in our society; it’s a complicated issue. What did you take away from South Pole Station about the interplay of science, politics, religion, and economics in the climate change debate? Did the novel shift your perspective at all? How so?

11. We aren’t privy to Pavano’s perspective until the end of the novel when we learn of his ascendance as a "climate change skeptic." In what ways did his backstory align with your expectations? What elements surprised you?
(Guide written by Laura Chasen and issued by the publisher.)

top of page (summary)