Thinking that he has been singled out as victim of whatever might be stalking the bay where the camp is situated, only when he reads another character’s notebook does he realise that he was not alone in entertaining fears about the place, and that his efforts to maintain a façade of normality have been misinterpreted. The companions remain fairly shadowy to the reader because they are filtered through Jack’s point of view, which enables the creation of a sense of ambiguity. We get to know him, his hopes and fears, and how his ambitions have been wrecked by the loss of his family and the Depression. The method of telling the story through Jack’s diary works well, restricting our perspective on events. The group’s numbers are whittled down through mishap until Jack finds himself alone, apart from the company of one of the huskies, as the seemingly endless night sets in and in his cabin fever he finds that ghosts can be as much inside one as outside. Set in 1937, with war clouds on the horizon, Jack Miller joins a small scientific expedition to the Arctic as its radio operator. The loneliness, stillness, and ability to manipulate perception that the polar regions possess, have long been linked to a sense of the uncanny, and Michelle Paver has utilised that unease for her enjoyable, if not altogether successful, ghost story.
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