Out now!

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Order: via Bookshop.org // directly from Deep Vellum // your local bookstore

(if you buy from / support an independent bookstore, I’ll love you forever)

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An allegory of extraction and a tale of adventure and endurance during the waning days of the American whaling industry.

Setting out from New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1878, the crew of the Esther is confident the sea will be theirs: in addition to cruising the Pacific for whale, they intend to hunt the teeming northern grounds before the ice closes. But as they sail to their final destination in the Chukchi Sea, their encounters with the natural world become more brutal, harrowing, ghostly, and strange.

With one foot firmly planted in the traditional sea-voyage narrative, and another in a blazing mythos of its own, this debut novel looks unsparingly at the cost of environmental exploitation and predation, and in doing so feverishly sings not only of the past but to the present and future as well.

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Whales! Boats! The Arctic! Extreme Heat! Avenging Bird-Gods of the Sea! What’s not to love? Here is a review that made my day (and some nice praise below):

“North Sun’s ultimate tragedy, and its genius, however, derives from its knowledge that just as quickly as this balance [between human & nature] arose, it was brought crashing down by the inexorable tide of progress. With the death of whaling came the fall of one of the last bastions of myth in our society; the novel merely allows us a posthumous glimpse into its final days.” — The Baffler

“NORTH SUN is a deeply wonderful, strange and magnificent book. I swam through its unique pages with glee and horror and joy and came up for air gasping at what a deeply brilliant writer Ethan Rutherford is. The novel is completely exhilarating. How I shall miss its company, how I do long for Old Sorrel. In short, I consider this completely original tale of man and nature and ocean an absolute triumph.”—Edward Carey, author of Little, The Swallowed Man, and Edith Holler: A Novel

"Haunting, hallucinatory, and unrelentingly gorgeous, NORTH SUN feels as real as a history and as strange as a myth. The depths of Rutherford's imagination left me enraptured and unsettled. This is the kind of book that will keep talking to you long after you've finished reading." —Jennifer duBois, author of The Last Language

“This book is bonkers.”—Manuel Gonzales, author of The Miniature Wife and The Regional Office is Under Attack!

A companion album of original music composed by Peter C Murray coming soon, available only on cassette.