Trailer Park Tuesday: To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

Just as she did in her debut novel The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey marries magical realism with the cold realities of Alaska’s wilderness in her latest book To the Bright Edge of the World. Here’s how the publisher describes the story:

In the winter of 1885, Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester sets out with his men on an expedition into the newly acquired territory of Alaska. Their objective: to travel up the ferocious Wolverine River, mapping the interior and gathering information on the region’s potentially dangerous native tribes. With a young and newly pregnant wife at home, Forrester is anxious to complete the journey with all possible speed and return to her. But once the crew passes beyond the edge of the known world, there's no telling what awaits them.

The trailer, in which the camera flows like a river over an animated map, only serves to heighten my anticipation of To the Bright Edge of the World. “A sweeping, epic Alaskan tale with just a hint of magic,” the novel is constructed from letters and diary entries written by a young pioneering couple. In the opening letter sent to the curator of a historical museum, Lieutenant Colonel Forrester’s great-nephew writes: “The Colonel’s journey was a harrowing one. Maybe it was doomed from the beginning but I don’t see as to how that takes away from its importance. His expedition is surely the Alaskan equivalent of Lewis and Clark’s....Several of his private journal entries are downright fantastical and don’t align with his official reports. Some who have read these pages write off the odder occurrences as hallucinations, brought on by starvation and exposure to the elements. Others have accused the Colonel of embellishing his journals in order to gain notoriety....I’ve chosen to consider another possibility—that he described what he saw with his own two eyes. It takes a kind of arrogance to think everything in the world can be measured and weighed with our scientific instruments.” If you’d like to read more from the novel, which is due in bookstores in August, click here for a brief excerpt.