White Heat
M.J. McGrath, 2011
Penguin Group USA
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780670022489
Summary
Half Inuit and half outsider, Edie Kiglatuk is the best guide in her corner of the Arctic. But as a woman, she gets only grudging respect from the elders who ruled her isolated community on Ellesmere Island.
When a man is shot and killed while out on an "authentic" Arctic adventure under her watch, the murder attracts the attention of police sergeant Derek Palliser. As Edie sets out to discover what those tourists were really after, she is shocked by the suicide of someone very close to her. Though these events are seemingly unrelated, Edie's Inuit hunter sensibility tells her otherwise. With or without Derek's help, she is determined to find the key to this connection-a search that takes her beyond her small village, and into the far reaches of the tundra.
White Heat is a stunning debut novel set in an utterly foreign culture amid an unforgiving landscape of ice and rock, of spirit ancestors and never-rotting bones. A suspense-filled adventure story that will captivate fans of Henning Mankell's bestselling mysteries, this book marks the start of an exciting new series. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Romford, Essex, UK
• Education—University of Oxford
• Currently—lives in London and on the Kentish coast
In her words
I was born in Romford, Essex, the third of four children. My parents, Peter and Margaret, had moved out of East London some time before, looking for a quieter, more spacious life. They thought of themselves as upwardly mobile, which they were. We moved a lot during my childhood, first to Basildon in Essex, then to a village in Germany, from there Kent, then north to Lancashire, south again to Buckinghamshire and so on. I tried pretty much every kind of school, from German kindergarten through catholic convent to bog standard state grammar.
After graduating high school with a mixture of arts and science A-levels, I won a place at Oxford to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics, imagining this combination would give me a grounding in ‘real life.’ Ha! I was soon writing essays on whether I could prove I wasn’t a bat and what might happen to the price of tennis rackets if tennis ball production was moved to Mars.
After graduation, I worked in book publishing, turning to writing at first part-time then full time in my late twenties. Looking back, I wish I’d had the guts to do that when I first came out of university. I always knew I wanted to write but didn’t think that Essex girls who knew how to prove they weren’t bats, and not much else, really stood a chance.
Although I am now a full time writer, I have enjoyed teaching creative writing at Roehampton University in London, at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in the USA and at The Arvon Foundation. After spells living in Las Vegas, Nevada and Nicaragua, I am for the time being settled in London and on the Kent coast.
I have had the extraordinary privilege to be able to travel widely: to Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic, to Alaska, Iceland, Madagascar, Mali, Namibia, Ethiopia, Gabon, Malaysia, Russia, China, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico and many other places besides. Place occupies a large part in my heart and in my work.
Currently, I am writing fiction, nonfiction and journalism. I have also written and presented for TV and radio. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
British journalist McGrath (The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal) makes her fiction debut with a solid thriller, the first in a series featuring Edie Kiglatuk, a half Inuit/half white, Arctic guide. A recovering alcoholic, Edie makes her living leading white (or qalunaat) tourists on hunting expeditions near her tiny outpost town of Autisaq on Canada's Ellesmere Island. When Felix Wagner is fatally shot during such a hunting trip, the local council of elders hurries to declare the death an accident, despite Edie's claim that she saw strange footprints near the body. After Felix's assistant, Andy Taylor, disappears during a subsequent trip while under the supervision of Edie's beloved ex-stepson, Joe Inukpuk, she suspects there's more going on than the routine perils of life in the Arctic. A picture soon emerges that includes a fight for precious natural resources and secrets that stretch back generations. McGrath captures the frigid landscape beautifully, and her heroine personifies the tension between the Inuit and qalunaat ways of life.
Publishers Weekly
Set on the islands of the High Arctic, McGrath's first novel features Edie Kiglatuk, a half-Inuit teacher and guide. She knows Craig Island like the back of her hand and is the first choice for qalunaat (southerners) who want to hunt or fish on the island. However, things go wrong for Edie when one of her charges is killed, supposedly by a ricochet from his own gun. This death is followed by another accident on Craig and the apparent suicide of Edie's stepson. Unable to accept these accidents, Edie decides to look into the deaths, and her investigations take her from Ellesmere Island to Greenland and Etah, the home of her ancestor, the famous guide Welatok. Verdict: Award-winning British journalist McGrath (The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic) shares a wealth of knowledge about life in the High Arctic that is central to her story. Well written and researched, her excellent adventure murder-mystery will hold readers' attention until the last page. —Lisa O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. First chapters of novels tend to play a key role in establishing the personality of the main character. How well do we know Edie Kiglatuk by the end of chapter one of White Heat? What character traits does McGrath highlight to create a bond between Edie and the reader?
2. Both Edie and Derek Palliser are of mixed race. How does the multiethnic background of each character influence his or her personality and perceptions?
3. Other characters in the novel frequently underestimate Edie because of her race and gender. How does she learn to use their prejudices to her advantage?
4. Some readers of White Heat have observed that the greatest character in the novel may be the Arctic itself. If one treats the Arctic as a character, then what is its personality? How does McGrath develop this personality over the course of the novel?
5. Within the world of White Heat, Edie Kiglatuk engages in many typically male activities. Nevertheless, do gender roles still exert an influence in the novel? Are there identifiable ways in which male and female behavior differs, even if the line between male and female tasks has been largely effaced?
6. How does the ethical code of the Inuit differ from the professed morality of "southerners"? Which moral system would you prefer to live under, and why?
7. Sergeant Palliser often seems more preoccupied with the social habits of lemmings than with enforcing the law. What does this say about the way southern laws are perceived in the Arctic?
8. Edie, a recovering alcoholic, resumes drinking and then stops again during the novel. How does McGrath deal with the problem of alcoholism, both as it relates to Edie and to the Inuit as a whole? Are you satisfied with her depiction of substance abuse in the novel?
9. Edie regards much of the prescribed "southern" curriculum—even the teaching of English spelling—as irrelevant, and she quietly introduces her own reforms. How should a dominant culture educate minority peoples? Should the focus fall on affirming traditional native values or preparing the minority to participate in the larger society and economy? What are the benefits and costs of each philosophy?
10. What attitudes are expressed in the novel toward Christian religious belief? What commentary is offered as to Inuit spirituality? What do you think of McGrath's approach to issues of religion?
11. Early reviews of White Heat have raved about the originality of McGrath's protagonist, Edie Kiglatuk. Apart from the obvious facts of her gender and ethnicity, what are the traits or behaviors that make Edie a somewhat unexpected, original character?
12. McGrath observes through Edie that "Inuit lives were like… Arctic rainbows, they ran not in lines but in circles" (p. 327). What does McGrath mean by this, and is her point borne out by the text of White Heat?
13. Speaking of the Inuit people, Edie tells Derek Palliser, "We can't escape our stories" (p. 322). In what ways, if any, do stories matter to the Inuit in manners that may not register as strongly with other peoples, and why?
(Questions issued by Penguin Group USA. Also, see the Inuktitut pronunciation guide on the publisher's website.)
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