The Still Point

By Amy Sackville
(Counterpoint, Hardcover, 9781582437095, 320pp.)

Publication Date: January 2011

Other Editions of This Title: Paperback

Categories: Literary

Praise for The Still Point

"Many novels explore the sliding planes, the archaeology of past, present and future and the still points where the fabric of time is rent and characters slip through. This is a lot to juggle, especially in a debut novel, but Amy Sackville pulls it off — thrillingly, seductively, dreamily. Not only do all the moving parts hold together, but a new fictional voice emerges here as well; not harsh, brash and shiny, not overly self-conscious and sentimental — somewhere between the calm beauty we expect from novels that invoke Victorian England and the raw edges of modern life." —Los Angeles Times

"A quiet but significant debut about identity and family." —Financial Times

"Amy Sackville’s The Still Point, a story of turn-of-the-century arctic pioneering and contemporary emotional frozen states, has an Eliotic calm that seems almost uncanny in a debut writer, and a narrative voice that’s subtle and original." —Times Literary Supplement

"Through Sackville’s rhythmic, lyrical prose, readers discover an Arctic alive with form and color, a place of unusual beauty with the ability to destroy. This is a subtle, probing exploration of the role of faith, the meaning of failure, and history’s power to move us forward." —Booklist

Praise for the U.K. edition

“The two worlds of ice and heat, a century apart, are carefully balanced by exquisitely restrained prose.” —Guardian

“An exceptional debut novel . . . She writes like a younger Rachel Cusk, precise poetry undercut by dry wit.” —Financial Times

“Spanning a single day, the novel’s dream-like structure belies its linguistic and emotional precision . . . a poised beginning.” —Daily Mail

“As iridescent in its writing as the snowy wastelands it evokes . . . This is a novel of palpable promise.” —Times Literary Supplement

“Sackville creates some soaring prose, full of elegance and confidence.” —The List

“If Virginia Woolf had had a younger sister with a passionate interest in icebergs, she might have written something like this beautiful, unearthly novel, in which the secrets of a house and of a marriage continually open out onto a wild glare of Arctic light.” —Francis Spufford, author of The Child That Books Built

“Sackville writes with great assurance and wonderfully evokes the polar landscape and the atmosphere of the period. A most promising debut.” —Penelope Lively

“Remarkable both as stylist and storyteller, Sackville unfolds a love story of compelling contrasts . . . a fine and distinctive first novel.” —Maura Dooley