by Hazel Prior
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781787630949
Publication Date: March 19, 2020
Pages: 341
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Eighty-five-year-old Veronica McCreedy is estranged from her family and wants to find a worthwhile cause to leave her fortune to. When she sees a documentary about penguins being studied in Antarctica, she tells the scientists she’s coming to visit—and won’t take no for an answer. Shortly after arriving, she convinces the reluctant team to rescue an orphaned baby penguin. He becomes part of life at the base, and Veronica’s closed heart starts to open.
Her grandson, Patrick, comes to Antarctica to make one last attempt to get to know his grandmother. Together, Veronica, Patrick, and even the scientists learn what family, love, and connection are all about.
LT is on a roll. This was, mostly, a delightful read, with a side salad of melancholy, regret and loneliness. Mostly, thank goodness, delight. The story is told with a dual POV between Veronica and James.
Veronica is a cranky old bird, but wealthy enough that most people would just call in imperious. She comes by it honestly, as events in her life have served to sever her from who she used to be and who she might have turned out to be.
James is a hot mess, living off the dole and occasionally self-medicating and just trying to get through it all. He, too, comes by his dysfunction honestly, though he seems to have a very good heart.
When Veronica and James meet for the first time, it’s not a success, and Veronica walks away from her only relative in the world. It’s her trip to Antartica, her resulting precarious friendship with one of the scientists, and a small fluff ball of a baby penguin that finally cracks Veronica’s shell, and that crack brings James to Antartica and together again with Veronica.
The reunion happens relatively late in the book, so the resolution is a bit … not rushed, but not strung out either. It mostly works. What I enjoyed most was – ok, it was the penguin, totally and completely the penguin – but what I enjoyed second most was that the author wrote a story about an 86 year old woman travelling to Antartica, alone, and she did it unapologetically, without caveats, or explanations. Almost as though people on the top end of the age spectrum still had agency; imagine that.
An easy read that isn’t an empty one; a book to be enjoyed while still leaving the reader with a few things to chew over afterwards.