Good Morning America is taking readers to Antarctica with its new book club pick.
The morning show’s latest selection is Chloe Benjamin’s Under Story. Slated for publication Tuesday by Putnam, the new novel from the author of The Immortalists follows Laurel Salter, a biologist who works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, hiding her science background from her coworkers. After a mysterious light appears near the station, her ex-husband journeys to the continent to observe it. A critic for Kirkus called the novel “ambitious, poignant, and deeply human.”
Benjamin appeared on GMA to discuss her book. “It’s about grief and healing; it’s about marriage,” she said. “I think it’s about our relationship with the natural world and also with ourselves.”
Asked how she researched for the novel, Benjamin said, “I don’t have a science background, but I think I’m interested in science from a philosophical perspective. It’s a way of trying to answer big, fascinating questions. I interviewed physicists. I followed mycologists—fungi researchers—working in caves. I attended a women’s mushroom conference. I interviewed clockmakers. All of these were really tactile as opposed to just reading. I hope this has given the world of the book a sense of texture and life as well.”
Benjamin revealed that she was dealing with the repercussions of chronic pain while writing the novel.
“While I was writing the book, I was healing slowly from many years of very severe migraines,” she said. “I like to say that this is the understory of Under Story, that although I haven’t experienced what the characters do in the book, I did experience losing the life that I had.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
