A lone ship journeys south, heading for the furthest reaches of Antarctica. It belongs to Sky, the billionaire behind a groundbreaking project to salvage the region. On board is disgraced environmental activist Ivy Cunningham, lending her expertise in the hope that it might rescue her reputation - and perhaps even mend her broken relationship with her son.
And yet, as the ship moves ever deeper into the breathtaking but eerie landscape, Ivy grows increasingly suspicious of her fellow passengers, and starts to question the project's motives.
If she could leave, she would - but she knows there's no way home.
Exhilarating, terrifying and thought-provoking at once, The Edge of Solitude is a story of climate emergency and human fallibility, of the clash of ambition and principle, and of the choices we make when we know that time is running out.
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This is a truly astonishing novel. Exhilarating, atmospheric and original, it is a mix of dystopia and speculative fiction and is everything that I want from a book. The author writes with a lyrical, almost poetic touch at times, yet her descriptions are often so stark, so chilling and violent. It's a novel that will stay with me for a very long time.
It's sometime in the near future and the climate change crisis continues, almost expected by everyone in the world. The world's richest man, known only as Sky claims that he can use science to reverse the existing process, to stop the melting ice, to stop the world's temperatures rising. He and his crew are on his super yacht, bound for Antarctica. They call it Plan B.
Ivy Cunningham, a seventy-five year old climate activist is also on board. Ivy is no longer revered and admired by the world, she refers to her downfall as the 'Helsinki Affair', yet readers are not privy to the full details until much later in the novel. Ivy is a character who is extremely difficult to either like, or empathise with. Their is no doubt that over the years she has achieved great things, she won prizes, her work was acclaimed internationally, but we hear from Ivy in her own voice. We hear about her relationships, her marriage, her parenting. We realise that Ivy has always put herself first, she will imply that it was the world that she wanted to save, but it's clear that it was the fame and the admiration that spurred her on.
Ivy and Sky have a strange relationship. Whilst she has researched him for years, and written many articles about him, and not all complimentary, they have never spent time together. Ivy is unsure why she's been asked to join the expedition and her nature leads her to more interference. She's something of a loose cannon .... and it becomes clear that she cannot trust anyone else on board.
Hale's descriptive prose of the landscape as the yacht sails is outstanding, she has the ability to put a chill down the reader's spine with her extraordinary use of words and language. The contrast between the utter luxury of the yacht, with it's heat and fine foods, compared with the stillness and desolation of the lands that they sail alongside is beautifully done.
This is Ivy's story, without a doubt. She honestly lays bear her life, her mistakes, her regrets, her continuing anguish about her relationship with her son and her grief for her late wife Bree. It is a study in a life lived in the spotlight. The science included in the story is fascinating and the effects of how humans have treated their planet is shocking and raw, and oh so real.
An outstanding read. Highly recommended by me.
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White Ghosts (Nine Arches, 2023).
Katie is a former MacDowell Fellow and winner of the Palette Poetry Prize, Munster Chapbook Prize and Aesthetica Creative Writing Prize.
Her short fiction has been longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award.
Her debut novel, My Name Is Monster, was published in 2019.
She won a Northern Writers' Award for Fiction in 2022 to work on The Edge of Solitude.
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