My Last Continent

Raymond’s (Learning English) first novel is both a complicated love story and an education in the plight of penguins in Antarctica, showcasing the beauty and terror unique to one of the world’s most remote terrains. The many facts about penguins are compelling, though the book veers dangerously close at times to being a jeremiad on the effects of humans on the birds’ now precarious lives. At the heart of the story is the complex relationship between Deb Gardner, a penguin researcher, and Keller Sullivan, a former Boston attorney whose tragic home life is the catalyst for his escape to Antarctica, moving up the ranks to become a nature guide. While the author skillfully captures the stunning and singular landscape and its special inhabitants, her depiction of the human relationships are less successful: from the frustrating on again, off again nature of Deb and Keller’s partnership (they are primarily only together in Antarctica during tourist season), to one tourist committing suicide because of his wife’s infidelity and another tourist couple’s stereotyped arguments about their readiness for parenthood. There’s also a later plot point that’s a dud. Still, Raymond’s novel has its high points, and will appeal most to environmentally minded armchair adventurists. (June)