The North Water

After reading this book, [b:Moby-Dick 153747 Moby-Dick; or, The Whale Herman Melville https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327940656s/153747.jpg 2409320], [b:In the Heart of the Sea 17780 In the Heart of the Sea The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Nathaniel Philbrick https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1335902168s/17780.jpg 1640941], and [b:The Terror 3974 The Terror Dan Simmons https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1442713631s/3974.jpg 3025639] (which isn't a whaling story, but it's still about people trapped on a boat), it's clear that a sailing vessel is its own special sort of dystopia. The Volunteer, the main ship in [b:The North Water 25666046 The North Water Ian McGuire https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1456351800s/25666046.jpg 45489184], is an isolated world of violence, rape, betrayal, where the “air is dense with the velvet reek of liquid feces.” Imagine what the characters experience in Cormac McCarthy's [b:The Road 6288 The Road Cormac McCarthy https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1439197219s/6288.jpg 3355573], then take all that and lock it on a ship in the ice floes of the arctic north, and you'll get an idea of what this book is like.