"I found the whole novel absolutely riveting and it’s very likely to be in my top reads of the year."
This novel has three sections: Lean, Fall, and Stand. In the first Doc, an old hand at Antarctic sojourns makes some very poor choices when he’s out on the ice near an Antarctic research station with two novices. It becomes clear that Doc has had a stroke. In the second section Doc’s wife, Anna, travels to Santiago in Chile to try and find a way through what’s happened to Doc who is in hospital there. In the third section Doc comes home to England and Anna has to become his carer. It’s a difficult thankless task, but eventually it is Doc who begins to find his own way through what’s happened to him. The powerful terror of the snowstorm in the first section is tremendous, as the three men out on the ice struggle to communicate – a wonderful metaphor for Doc’s aphasia in the next two sections. I found the whole novel absolutely riveting and it’s very likely to be in my top reads of the year.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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