To the Bright Edge of the World (Ivey)

To the Bright Edge of the World 
Eowyn Ivey, 2016
Little, Brown and Co.
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316242851


Summary
An atmospheric, transporting tale of adventure, love, and survival from the bestselling author of The Snow Child, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

In the winter of 1885, decorated war hero Colonel Allen Forrester leads a small band of men on an expedition that has been deemed impossible: to venture up the Wolverine River and pierce the vast, untamed Alaska Territory.

Leaving behind Sophie, his newly pregnant wife, Colonel Forrester records his extraordinary experiences in hopes that his journal will reach her if he doesn't return--once he passes beyond the edge of the known world, there's no telling what awaits him.

The Wolverine River Valley is not only breabbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbthtaking and forbidding but also terrifying in ways that the colonel and his men never could have imagined. As they map the territory and gather information on the native tribes, whose understanding of the natural world is unlike anything they have ever encountered, Forrester and his men discover the blurred lines between human and wild animal, the living and the dead.

And while the men knew they would face starvation and danger, they cannot escape the sense that some greater, mysterious force threatens their lives.

Meanwhile, on her own at Vancouver Barracks, Sophie chafes under the social restrictions and yearns to travel alongside her husband. She does not know that the winter will require as much of her as it does her husband, that both her courage and faith will be tested to the breaking point.

Can her exploration of nature through the new art of photography help her to rediscover her sense of beauty and wonder?

The truths that Allen and Sophie discover over the course of that fateful year change both of their lives--and the lives of those who hear their stories long after they're gone—forever. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 07, 1973
• Where—Alaska
• Education—B.A., Western Washington University
• Currently—lives in Alaska


Eowyn (A-o-win) LeMay Ivey was raised in Alaska and continues to live there with her husband and two daughters. Her mother named her after a character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

Eowyn works at the independent bookstore Fireside Books where she plays matchmaker between readers and books. The Snow Child, her debut novel, appeared in 2012; her second, To the Bright Edge of the World, was published in 2016. Her short fiction appears in the anthology Cold Flashes, University of Alaska Press 2010, and the North Pacific Rim literary journal Cirque.

Prior to her career as a bookseller and novelist, Eowyn worked for nearly a decade as an award-winning reporter at the Frontiersman newspaper. Her weekly articles about her outdoor adventures earned her the Best Non-Daily Columnist award from the Alaska Press Club. Her articles and photographs have been published in the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Magazine, and other publications.

Eowyn earned her BA in journalism and creative writing through Western Washington University's honors program and studied creative nonfiction in University of Alaska Anchorage's graduate program. She is a contributor to the blog 49Writers and a founding member of Alaska's first statewide writing center.

The Snow Child is informed by Eowyn's life in Alaska. Her husband is a fishery biologist with the state of Alaska. While they both work outside of the home, they are also raising their daughters in the rural, largely subsistence lifestyle in which they were both raised.

As a family, they harvest salmon and wild berries, keep a vegetable garden, turkeys and chickens, and they hunt caribou, moose, and bear for meat. Because they don't have a well and live outside any public water system, they haul water each week for their holding tank and gather rainwater for their animals and garden. Their primary source of home heat is a woodstove, and they harvest and cut their own wood.

These activities are important to Eowyn's day-to-day life as well as the rhythm of her year. (From the author's website.) (From .)

Book Reviews
Ivey's characters, without exception, are skillfully wrought and pull the narrative forward with little effort. She does not stoop to blanket depictions of tribal life or Victorian women, and instead has created a novel with all of the fine details that make historical fiction such an adventure to read. Fans of The Snow Child will not be disappointed.
Meganne Fabrega - Minneapolis Star Tribune


Lustrous...Ivey's writing is assured and deftly paced. She presents a pleasing chorus of voices and writing styles in an amalgam of journals, letters, newspaper clippings, greeting cards, official reports and more...The couple's moving love story binds the multilayered narrative together...Ivey's first novel, The Snow Child, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and her follow-up act is certain to garner its own accolades as readers discover its many unfolding pleasures.
David Takami - Seattle Times


(Starred review.) An...entrancing, occasionally chilling, depiction of turn-of-the-century Alaska.... In this splendid adventure novel, Ivey captures Alaska’s beauty and brutality, not just preserving history, but keeping it alive.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Ivey not only makes [this novel] work, she makes it work magnificently...The Snow Child (a lovely retelling of an old Russian folk tale), was a runaway hit, an international best seller, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her second work is even better.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Ivey deftly draws the reader into the perils of the journey...a compelling historical saga of survival.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Ivey's superb second novel is mainly composed of two braided journals. One is by Allen, an Army colonel.... The other is by his wife, Sophie.... Ivey anchors the tale in present-day correspondence between Allen's great-nephew and the curator of a museum to whom he's sent Allen's journals..... Heartfelt, rip-snorting storytelling.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for To the Bright Edge of the World...then take off on your own:

1. Talk about the novel's two primary characters: Col. Allen Forrester and Sophie Forrester. What do you think of them? What kind of leader is Forrester? And Sophie? In what ways does she not conform to the era's expectations for women?

2. How do the letters Allen sends to Sophie differ from his journal entries?

3. Talk about the dangers and hardships Allen and his men face during their journey. As they move deeper into the Alaskan wilderness, how do the men begin to revert to their more primal natures?

4. What role does the raven play in this story? Does it represent evil...or helpfulness...or what?

5. Sophie develops a passion for the burgeoning art of photography. How does photography open up her own journey of self-discovery?

6. Ivey has structured her novel as a story framed at both ends with another story, this one contemporary with our own time, in which Allen's great-nephew wishes to gift the letters and diaries to the Alpine Historical Museum. Why might Ivey used this framing device? What perspective does it lend to Allen and Sophie's story?

7. Discuss the spiritual, and shamanistic practices of the Native Americans who inhabit this land. How does Ivey weave those beliefs into her story? What kind of atmosphere does she create?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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