The North Water is a 2016 novel by English author and academic Ian McGuire. The North Water was published by Henry Holt and Company (USA) and Simon & Schuster (UK)/Scribner (UK). The "north water" of the title is the North Water Polynya, to which ships sail in the endless pursuit of whales for their valuable oil. The novel opens in Hull where the industry is under threat due to cheaper paraffin and coal oil replacing whale oil. We meet Henry Drax, a harpooner of the whaling ship Volunteer who rapes and kills a child, "... a brute, a vacuum into which men and boys are sucked and do not emerge alive". Joining the crew of the Volunteer as their doctor is Irishman Patrick Sumner, a disgraced former British army surgeon with a murky past in India.
Adaptations (1)
The North Water was adapted into a 2021 television series.
The North Water2021 · television series · 90 min · IMDb ↗IMDb7.6Henry Drax is a harpooner and brutish killer whose amorality has been shaped to fit the harshness of his world, who will set sail on a whaling expedition to the Arctic with Patrick Sumner, a disgraced ex-army surgeon who signs up as the ship’s doctor. Hoping to escape the horrors of his past, Sumner finds himself on an ill-fated journey with a murderous psychopath. In search of redemption, his story becomes a harsh struggle for survival in the Arctic wasteland.
