The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan (8 Feb. 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1447286022
• ISBN-13: 978-1447286028
• Product Dimensions: 15.3 x 3.5 x 23.4 cm

Synopsis

Alaska, 1974. Untamed. Unpredictable. A story of a family in crisis struggling to survive at the edge of the world, it is also a story of young and enduring love.

Cora Allbright and her husband Ernt, a recently-returned Vietnam veteran scarred by the war, uproot their thirteen year old daughter Leni to start a new life in Alaska. Utterly unprepared for the weather and the isolation, but welcomed by the close-knit community, they fight to build a home in this harsh, beautiful wilderness.

Review

About five years ago I read The Night Road by Kristin Hannah and was blown away by her writing and her wonderful plot line that was full of emotion.  I don’t know why but I haven’t read another of Krisitn Hannah’s novel since, so when asked if I would like to review her latest novel I was quite excited.  The Great Alone is set in the harsh landscape of Alaska in the 1970’s; a place where there was no electricity, running water, no shops and very few people.  The houses were huts with outside toilets, no demarkation of rooms so families lived in one room.  As well as the simple living conditions there is the harsh landscape of Alaska, in the winter a frozen terrain where nothing grows, it is dark for eighteen hours a day, and you have to live off the food you put away in the summer.  In the summer daylight lasts most of the day, and it is a time to fish and hunt and put food away for the cold and dark months to come.

Into this vast and harsh land come the Allbright family, Ernt, Cora and their thirteen year old daughter Leni.  Ernt is a veteran POW of the Vietnam war, a troubled character who can’t hold down job, is known to be violent, and has a darkness in him; today he would be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but in the 1970’s mental health issues were not understood. Ernt is a mirror of the Alaskan landscape in that in he can change quickly, from light to dark, from calm to angry; he flourished in the summer but in the darkness of the winter months his dark nightmares return as well as his darkness and depression. Cora is the love of his life, she remembers the Ernt who loved her before the war, and hopes that the move to Alaska will help him.  Leni has had a hard childhood continually moving around to different places, to different schools, and having to watch her parents abusive relationship.  Surprisingly, it is Leni who thrives in this expansive environment, she gains strength from the elements, and flourishes into a confident and strong young woman, and finds love against the odds.  She still keeps an air of vuneablilty, due mainly to her father and his violent moods, and her mothers constant love for him.

Kristen Hannah’s writing is beautiful and draws you into the powerful force of nature that is Alaska.  There is plenty of attention to detail and it is as if Alaska is a character in this book, an untamed feral character that can has to power to change people, and itself quickly and to great effect.  There is a vulnerability to both place and the people who live there, a way of life that was dying out with change on the horizon, the modern world encroaching into their community.

What really came through for me in this novel was the strength of the women; Cora, Leni, Marge and Geneva.  All adjusted and worked tirelessly to just survive and raise children in this hard land, and all faced different personal problems. As a community, these women and men helped each other both emotionally and physically and came together to care for their own in a crisis.  There are difficult issues raised in this book, mental health, mental and physical abuse, but it is the many guises of love, its power to save us, bring happiness, make us sad and even destroy us, but ultimately the hope and strength it can bring in bad times that shines through.

The Great Alone is one big hug of a novel.  It is all encompassing, full of emotion, beautifully written and grabs you so you don’t want to let go.  Powerful and sublime read that will stay with me for a long time.