Alternately mesmerizing,Īstonishing and terrifying each other, they are pulled into a tumultuous liaison. She and Trygvesen are drawn to each other despite themselves. Although they initially deride him as a fool forĬounting bird droppings, his quiet respectfulness gradually wins people over.įor the first time, the wary Kayuqtuq finds herself ensnared by a greater power than her own. A hippy, a conscientious objector, the gentle son of a cruel father, he is not like other In a mean mood, she resolves to take on the white 'birdman' as a project, intending toĬhallenge his scientific worldview with her supernatural powers.īut Trygvesen confounds her expectations and those of the villagers. Her: she is not Inupiaq but a despised 'itkiliq' (Indian), and she studies the ancient but now Taken in years before by the respected Ugungoraseok family. An orphan, neglected and molested, she was Kayuqtuq is an outcast among the villagers. It is a time of sorrow, war, harsh racism and painful change in the The story is set in the early 1970s, on the shores near the Bering Strait and in the fictional I don't know what goes for normal here but she seemsĬhurlish and unhappy and like some kind of malnourished andĭisheveled stray. He writes in his diary: 'Ran into a strange girl asleep in the

Leif Trygvesen he was a field biologist, and he came north to Of the man who both destroyed and saved her life. Kayuqtuq, 'the red fox,' also called Gretchen, narrates the tale Startling new variation in her impressive debut novel, 'Flight of The theme of star-crossed lovers is as old and universal as any in We see it in the face of the moon, in the face of our lover, in our own death, in the flight of the goose.'įairbanks Daily News-Miner/Peninsula Clarion:įrom the bookshelf: Powerful novel portrays cultures' 'Whatever is already in us at birth, we find again in stories. Told from both Kayuqtuq's and Leif's perspectives, 'Flight of the Goose' is a tale of cultural conflict, spiritual awakening, redemption and love in a time when things were, to use the phrase of an old arctic shaman, 'no longer familiar'

Flight of the Goose by Lesley Thomas