The Carp Castle

A band of misfits boards an airship to search for utopia, in this novel by the author of The Balloonist, a National Book Award finalist: "A delight" (Philip Pullman, author of The Amber Spyglass).

An unemployed American metaphysician, a perpetually ill English nurse, a guilt-ridden German captain-they and a handful of others are about to board an airship called The League of Nations. Under the seductive spell of Moira, a mix of mystic, cult leader, and prophet, these haunted men and broken women will go in search of a mysterious polar promised land-but the journey may not take them where they expect it to...

Set in the years after the First World War, this is a uniquely imaginative novel from an author praised by the Chicago Tribune as "a gifted craftsman, a meticulous writer whose powers as a storyteller are as compelling as the sexual tensions he imagines."

"His sympathy for such a range of characters in their crazinesses, their various kinds of loneliness, their sheer comedy is wonderful. I think it's one of his very best." -Philip Pullman, author of The Amber Spyglass

"As stirring and beautiful as one of the airships that MacDonald Harris so obviously delighted in... Witty, sexy, surprising, and so generous to his cast of crackpots and con-artists and heartsore seekers." -Owen King, author of Double Feature

"[The author] weaves a magical web of words in his narrative of mysticism, séances and a dirigible named The League of Nations... The action is inspired and written in undeniably gorgeous prose." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)