Degrees of Separation
Published on 30. June 2008
240 pages
978-1-74253-230-1 (ISBN)
Description
On board an aircraft as it makes its way slowly from the Antarctic to New Zealand, three people sit quietly, reflecting on their past summer on the ice.
Sally, a composer, has been searching for inspiration. She wasn't prepared for the silence of Antarctica.
William, a bird scientist, has been visiting since the 1960s. Estranged from his family, he has just completed his last summer on the ice.
Marilyn, a young communications operator, has spent three months at Scott Base feeling isolated and lonely. She has had an affair with a young field-training instructor and now dreads the future.
Contrasting the beauty and vastness of the Antarctic with the banality and discomfort of life on ice, Laurence Fearnley's new novel focuses on themes of love and memory to capture the stories of three people stuggling to understand their journey.
More details
Person
Laurence Fearnley is an award-winning novelist. Her novel The Hut Builder won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards. In 2014 her novel Reach was longlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and, in 2008, Edwin and Matilda was runner-up in the fiction category of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Her second novel, Room, was shortlisted for the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. In 2004 Fearnley was awarded the Artists to Antarctica Fellowship and in 2007 the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. In 2016 she won the NZSA/ Janet Frame Memorial Award and in 2017 she was the joint winner of the Landfall essay competition. She was named a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate in 2019. She lives in Dunedin.
