A Horrifying Villain in The North Water


Ian McGuire wants you to move in The North Water, and he moves the story along through one adventure after another, making for an exhilarating, at times exhausting read.

The book focuses on two men, Patrick Sumner and Henry Drax, who both end up working on a whaling ship named the Volunteer in the north of England in the 19th century. Because of some prior bad acts on Sumner’s part, and a life of them on Drax’s, the two men find themselves on the boat because they have few other places to go-few others who would have them.

McGuire sets up his two main characters as opposites. Sumner is the ship’s doctor, and while his addiction to opium cost him an entire life of friends and a place in society before boarding the ship, he is shown to be a man driven by a moral sense of right and wrong. Drax, on the other hand, spends the day before the ship sets sail raping and murdering a young boy. In just about every scene with Drax, the formidable man makes you think he could slice the throat of everyone in the room with little provocation. When he does turn violent, it still shocks by how gruesome and heartless it can be.

The crew of the Volunteer endures endless physical hardships, and McGuire shows us how Sumner, Drax, and others on the ship, react or recoil. There is a dedication throughout the novel to bringing us close in on the actions of the men, whether it’s the sucking and swallowing of a seal’s eyeball, or the tasting of a bear’s bile. McGuire’s men are lost in the visceral, and that’s where the novel is most entertaining.

By book’s end, the reader isn’t left with much to weigh out. Sumner is complicated, sure, and Drax as fascinating as a wild animal, but so what? The North Water is best appreciated for the author’s lyrical, at times terrifying writing. Who needs a lesson?

Thanks to Ellie Garcia for recommending The North Water.

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