He sniffs his fingers, then slowly sucks each one in turn, drawing off the last remnants, getting his final money's worth.' McGuire has created possibly the most vile invertebrate in literature in Drax, a harpooner that represents the very depth of darkness possible in the soul of a man. He snorts once, rubs his bristled head, and readjusts his crotch. The rage always has an ending a blood-soaked finale, but the thirst is bottomless and without limit.” Stumbling out of a brothel just before dawn, he sniffs the 'the complex air-turpentine, fishmeal, mustard, black lead, the usual grave, morning-piss stink of just-emptied night jars. The rage is fast and sharp, but the thirst is lengthy. Behold Henry Drax: 'Tonight he will kill, but the killing is not topmost in his mind. With a style that is undiluted and vivid, McGuire christens the Yorkshire whaler, the Volunteer, immediately in violence with the rape of a cabin boy (left for dead) on the eve of the ship's departure.

Short-Listed for the 2016 Man Booker, this is an unflinching novel that immediately invades your senses, a forewarning of what you are in for on this doomed whaling voyage into the Arctic. With savage, unstoppable momentum and the blackest wit, Ian McGuire's The North Water weaves a superlative story of humanity under the most extreme conditions. And as the confrontation between the two men plays out amid the freezing darkness of an arctic winter, the fateful question arises: Who will survive until spring? The discovery of something evil in the hold rouses Sumner to action. He had hoped to find temporary respite on the Volunteer, but rest proves impossible with Drax on board. In India, during the Siege of Delhi, Sumner thought he had experienced the depths to which man can stoop.

Also aboard for the first time is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon with a shattered reputation, no money, and no better option than to sail as the ship's medic on this violent, filthy, and ill-fated voyage. Henry Drax is a harpooner on the Volunteer, a Yorkshire whaler bound for the rich hunting waters of the arctic circle. A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceĪ 19th-century whaling ship sets sail for the Arctic with a killer aboard in this dark, sharp, and highly original tale that grips like a thriller.īehold the man: stinking, drunk, and brutal.

The North Water by Ian McGuire