IN THE GRIP OF THE ICE

A teenage stowaway records the disastrous course of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Antarctic expedition.

Bennett adds minor fictional details, but the aborted expedition’s records are good enough that she can stick to actual events and people—even when it comes to her protagonist, 19-year-old Welsh stowaway Perce Blackborow—and still lay out a remarkable tale of courage and suffering in the face of fantastically brutal conditions. Unusually, this narrative unfolds in free verse poems, which makes for a faster and more accessible read. The format also adds an epic flavor to the voyage and ensuing trek to land after the ship Endurance is trapped in and crushed by pack ice. As a narrator, Perce is observant rather than self-absorbed. The plain language of his first-person observations leaves room for some rumination as he vividly records extremes of privation and effort—“My feet are slowly recovering, / all but the toes on my left foot. / … / I know they will have to come off. / But when?” The sled dogs he affectionately tallies by name early on are later killed and eaten. Improbably, all the men survived. The author has Shackleton himself chime in occasionally, and for additional insight into the expedition’s indomitable leader, she closes with some of his favorite verses from Rudyard Kipling, Robert Service, and other heroic poets.

An unusual and inviting approach to an archetypal survival tale.