Snow Widows
Katherine MacInnes
William Collins Books
[review rating=”3″ align = “left”]
THIS meta-biography written in present tense gives the before lesser heard voices of women a chance to have their own outlet. Former journalist and prizewinning biographer Katherine MacInnes has long been researching the female perspective on polar exploration’s golden age and has travelled across the UK and New Zealand to find out more about the “snow widows”. In this group biography, the author reconstructs and retells the stories of the women who held dear the five men lost during Captain Robert Scott’s second expedition to Antarctica.
With this book, MacInnes takes a new approach to the fate of the famously fatal journey of Terra Nova’s final quintuple of crew. Where other authors and producers have firmly placed their interest on the men who crossed oceans and glaciers to get to their coveted destination, the South Pole, this dangerous journey is not the main focus with Snow Widows. Of course still a vital aspect to the story, the author weaves the ship’s voyage and the fate of its men into the lives of their surviving wives and mothers seamlessly.
The book reads like an informative piece of historical fiction, with the representation of the lives and times being engrossing and encompassing in its descriptions, albeit it is valuable to have some previous knowledge about the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910 and its historical context. This is because the biography, while being mainly chronological, still opens quite abruptly with the events and with little explanations, expecting the reader to be relatively aware of the Edwardian era and the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration”.
A perfect gift for those interested in unique takes on history, this book is illuminating and shows the sacrifices we make for people we love.
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