A Polar Affair: Antarctica's Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of Penguins by Lloyd Spencer Davis

My eye caught three things: Robert Falcon Scott--Antarctica--Penguins--and I submitted my request for the galley. Later I noted one other stand-out word: Sex. Specifically, the sex lives of penguins, but the book embraced more than just the birds' proclivities.

My first introduction to Antarctica was Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater, which an elementary school teacher read aloud to my class. I read it many times. When I was about eleven years old I picked up The Great White South by Herbert Ponting, the photographer on the Scott Expedition to the South Pole. Scott's story caught my imagination. He was a tragic, flawed hero. Ever since, I have been drawn to read books about Polar expeditions and explorers. 

One of Herbert Ponting's amazing photographs

A Polar Affair by Llyod Spencer Davis is a highly readable and entertaining book about Davis's career in penguin research and the stories of the explorers who first encountered the Antarctic penguins. Specifically, George Murray Levick, physician with the Scott expedition, who became the first to record the habits and lives of penguins.

Levick wrote a book but it was never made public. When Davis discovered a copy he was shocked to learn that he was not the first to observe what Levick had already documented.

The book is a wonderful blend, offering science and nature, history, first-person account, and adventure. He vividly recounts the story of the men who vied to be the first to reach the South Pole, including their human frailties and ill-thought decisions. 

The story of Levick and two other men trapped over an Antarctic winter in an ice cave is especially horrifying to read! The harsh realities of the penguins' struggle to survive was eye-opening.

Davis's quest to understand Levick and the mystery of the suppressed research takes him across the world, snooping into libraries and museums. 

Even though I know the stories, I was riveted, especially since Davis includes the explorer's personal lives. As Davis writes, "Our idols are never so virtuous as we make them out to be."

The next visit I make to the Detroit Zoo Penguin Conservation Center I will be looking at the penguins with more appreciation.

I was given access to a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

A Polar Affair: Antarctica's Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of Penguins

by Lloyd Spencer Davis

Pegasus Books

Pub Date 03 Sep 2019  

ISBN 9781643131252

PRICE $29.95 (USD)

Other books I have reviewed about Antarctic exploration:

To the Edges of the Earth by Edward J. Larson

https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-last-of-old-fashioned-heroes.html

Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2017/03/ice-ghosts-200-years-searching-for-lost.html

The White Darkness by David Grann
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/10/white-darkness-by-david-grann-story-of.html

Fiction about Antarctica:

My Last Continent by Midge Raymond
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/06/my-last-continent-by-midge-raymond.html

The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-birthday-boys-by-beryl-bainbridge.html

My Last Continent by Midge Raymond: Antarctic Romance and Adventure

"Midge Raymond's phenomenal novel takes us on a voyage deep into the wonders of the Antarctic and the mysteries of the human heart...packed with emotional intelligence and high stakes--a harrowing, searching novel of love and loss in one of the most remote places on earth, a land of harsh beauty where even the smallest missteps have tragic consequences." from the publisher

It was World Penguin Day when I started reading  My Last Continent by Midge Raymond. I had not realized how perfectly timed my choice was. Raymond's novel is a love story, the love between star crossed lovers and their mutual love of penguins and the Antarctic.

from the author's blog

Deb and Keller are penguin researchers whose love affair flourishes only during their brief weeks together in Antarctica. Their off-season work is on opposite sides of the county, Driven by their need to make a difference and to save the penguins, both are willing to risk everything, even their lives and each other.

Shadows of Antarctic explorers are seen everywhere, foreshadowing the novel's climax.The ghosts of lonely deaths haunt the desolate landscape. Robert Falcon Scott's hut stands undisturbed. "I may be some time," said Capt. Oates as he left the tent shared with his imperiled Scott expedition explorers. He never returned. Deb's lover in passing, Dennis, likewise wandered off to his lonely death after being left behind by his tour boat.

The solitude of the icy desert, the isolation, soothes Deb. Part of Deb wants and needs solitude. Part of her fears dying alone. The memory of an emperor penguin who died alone haunts her. Female emperors leave their eggs under the male's care while she takes off to fatten up for nursing the chick. The males huddle together during the long months of darkness until nearly starved. Human males aren't programmed like the emperors. Before meeting Keller Deb had been alone, for what male was going to wait at home while she took off every year?

"Great God! This is an awful place," Robert Scott wrote in his journal. Tragedy comes into Deb's life and for the first time she realizes the depth of despair that prompted Scott's desperate cry. Keller's ship has hit an iceberg and is sinking and Deb is compelled to search for her beloved mate in the thrilling climax of the novel.

Antarctica is more than the backdrop for the novel, it is a living character. A hundred years ago the explorers vied to be the 'first'; today tourists tick it off  as the last of continent visited. The environmental destruction and pollution that comes with tourism, overfishing, and climate change all endanger the penguins. Raymond manages to educate readers through the characters and the action.

I loved this book. It is so original in concept and the writing is beautiful.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

My Last Continent
by Midge Raymond
Scribner
Publication Date June 21, 2016
$26.00
ISBN:9781501124709