A review by kfan
Fram by Steve Himmer

4.0

I got to read an early copy of this book and I really loved it. It's kind of about jobs and our relationship to our work, but it's also kind of about the ways our ideas about the environment & nature come crashing up against the brutal reality of it. It's about marriage and friendship and what we share about ourselves and what we keep secret. BUT it's also a spy thriller?

KIND OF: the story is about a low level bureaucrat who has spent his life working on an arctic-related government secret. But he's never actually been to the arctic. Until now! There's a mission to the north! And the story of his journey is set against so many other adventurers who traveled to the north, looking for something and often dying in the process.

This book is a good antidote to manly adventure/chosen one stories. Oscar isn't anyone's hero or savior, there's just some stuff happening around him. The stuff happening around him is an intense and gripping thriller, but that's all in the corners of the story, and Oscar could care less.

The writing is loose and and funny and weird. Steve jumps in and out of and around genres with an ease that is completely insane to me. Really original and really fun.