“An elaborate tale of family and the paths people take to understanding.” — “[This] mix of well-researched history and contemporary fiction makes for a fine, sad read.” — “Hauntingly honest and emotionally resonant.” — (starred review) “Gregory Spatz’s prose is as clean and sparkling as a new fall of snow.” — , author of and “At its heart is about family. But Spatz has transfigured this beautifully told, wise story with history and myth, poetry and magic into something rarer, stranger and altogether amazing. A book that points unerringly true north.” — John Franklin has moved his fifteen-year-old son to the remote northern Canadian town of Houndstitch to make a new life together after his wife, Thomas’ mother, left them. Mourning her disappearance, John, a high school English teacher, writes poetry and escapes into an affair, while Thomas withdraws into a fantasy recreation of the infamous Victorian-era arctic expedition led by British explorer Sir John Franklin. With teenage bravado, Thomas gives himself scurvy so that he can sympathize with the characters in the film of his mind—and is almost lost himself. While told over the course of only a few days, this gripping tale slips through time, powerfully evoking a modern family in distress and the legendary "Franklin's Lost Expedition" crew’s descent into despair, madness, and cannibalism aboard the on the Arctic tundra. is the author of the novels and the short fiction collections A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and recipient of a Washington State Book Award, he teaches at Eastern Washington Universityin Spokane and plays the fiddle and tours with Mighty Squirrel and the internationally acclaimed bluegrass band John Reischman and The Jaybirds.