Landfalls
A Novel
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3.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The gripping story of a dramatic eighteenth-century voyage of discovery from Naomi J. Williams
In her wildly inventive debut novel, Naomi J. Williams reimagines the historical La Pérouse expedition, a voyage of exploration that left Brest in 1785 with two frigates, two hundred men, and overblown Enlightenment ideals and expectations, in a brave attempt to circumnavigate the globe for science and the glory of France.
Deeply grounded in historical fact but refracted through a powerful imagination, Landfalls follows the exploits and heartbreaks not only of the men on the ships but also of the people affected by the voyage-natives and other Europeans the explorers encountered, loved ones left waiting at home, and those who survived and remembered the expedition later. Each chapter is told from a different point of view and is set in a different part of the world-ranging from London to Tenerife, Alaska to remote South Pacific islands and Siberia, and eventually back to France. The result is a beautifully written and absorbing tale of the high seas, scientific exploration, human tragedy, and the world on the cusp of the modern era.
By turns elegiac, profound, and comic, Landfalls reinvents the maritime adventure novel for the twenty-first century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Williams's debut novel is a historical maritime adventure based on the actual ill-fated 1785 1788 Lap rouse expedition of scientific exploration, when France sent two ships on an around-the-world voyage of discovery. Williams's research is thorough and meticulous, using primary sources such as letters, journals, and reports sent from the expedition until both ships and their crews vanished without a trace in 1788 in the South Pacific. From those sources Williams weaves a fictional and suspenseful tale of uncertain exploration, telling each part of the story from a different character's perspective and location. In London, the expedition's naval engineer tries to buy British navigation and scientific instruments without tipping off the English to their use. In Chile, the French are greeted warmly by the Spanish, but illicit romance and ideas of imperialism and revolution surface. Alaska sees tragic contact with local natives, and a visit to California reveals the threat of Russian expansion. In Macao, the expedition commander, Captain Jean-Francois Lap rouse, has trouble with the pompous scientists. In the South Pacific, the ships battle islanders, suspicions of murder arise, and the ships and crews disappear. Years later, search parties and blind luck reveal clues to the fate of the Lap rouse expedition, and Williams brilliantly describes the end of the expedition as remembered by a single survivor and several islanders. Williams does a masterly job with her descriptions of the officers, sailors, scientists, and people they meet, explaining a colorful, vibrant bit of maritime history in the age of discovery.
