The Navigator of New York

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

Wayne Johnston’s last novel, the internationally acclaimed Colony of
Unrequited Dreams, was an audacious fictional autobiography of
Newfoundland Premier Joey Smallwood, entwining the real Smallwood’s
life with that of an imaginary journalist who loved him. This new work
is an even bolder blend of history and fiction. Its narrator is
imaginary, but the story he tells involves one of the most controversial
of polar explorers, Frederick Cook, and, to a lesser extent, Cook’s
bitter and hated rival, Robert Peary. Each claimed to have been the
first man to reach the North Pole, and, while it lasted, their
acrimonious quarrel made headlines around the world. But this
extraordinary and rich book is not primarily about the race to the
pole—although the quest occupies a dramatic portion of the tale. The
novel tells of the odyssey of its narrator, Devlin Stead, who is not
what he seems to his St. John’s neighbors, or to those whom he meets
in such places as Ellis Island, Greenland, or a banquet of the National
Geographic Society attended by President Theodore Roosevelt. Gradually,
Devlin learns more and more about himself and his parents, even to final
revelations in the book’s concluding pages. Some readers may be uneasy
about a mixture of fiction and history that attributes a shocking crime
to famous historical figures, but, as Johnston says of his tale, “At
times, it places real people in imaginary space and time. At others,
imaginary people in real space and time.”

The gripping narrative is matched by the author’s wondrous
descriptions, from the chaotic birth of modern New York City to the
amazing calving of a gigantic iceberg. Taking us from the perilous
slopes of Signal Hill, where occurs an incident that resonates through
the book, to the debilitating, terrifying, and seemingly endless Arctic
night, he has fashioned a major novel that will linger long in memory.