The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.
Introduction to the author and book
KRISTIN HANNAH was born on 25 September 1960 in California, and practiced law in Seattle before becoming a full-time writer. She is the award winning author of over twenty novels the most notable being Winter Garden, The Nightingale, Firefly Lane, The Great Alone, and The Four Winds. Haer best-selling work, The Nightingale, has sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide and has been published in 45 languages.
Hannah lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with her husband and their son.
The Great Alone is a semiautobiographical novel, published by St. Martin’s Press in 2018. The story follows the Allbright family’s move to the Alaskan wilderness and the ensuing challenges they face there. Isolation, in all its forms, is a central theme of the book.
The title The Great Alone is a reference to Robert W. Service’s poem, “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”. Hannah cites her family, 1970s politics, and Alaskan culture as inspirations for the novel.
Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision to move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.
Thirteen-year-old Leni, the narrator, is a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time. Caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, she dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family and a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknown.
At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources. But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to the threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.
As Leni grows up in the shadow of her parents’ increasingly volatile marriage, she meets Matthew. And Matthew – thoughtful, kind, and brave – makes her believe in the possibility of a better life.
In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska – a place of incomparable beauty and danger.
With her trademark combination of elegant prose and deeply drawn characters, Kristin Hannah celebrates the remarkable and enduring strength of women.
‘A woman has to be tough as steel up here. You can’t count on anyone to save you and your children. You have to be willing to save yourselves.’’
‘A master storyteller’ – Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing.
‘A rich, compelling novel of love, sacrifice and survival, as epic as the Alaskan landscape it so vividly describes’ – Kate Morton, author of Homecoming.
What do you think of this novel?
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Vicki James & Helen Sinclair
The next book for August 24 will be …
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (656 pages, easy read)
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