{"product_id":"the-rifles-isbn-9780140176230","title":"The Rifles","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe story of John Franklin’s doomed 1845 attempt to discover a Northwest Passage, from the National Book Award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eEurope Central\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVaulting through time to another flashpoint in the long struggle between Indians and Europeans, William T. Vollmann's visionary fictional history now focuses on the white explorers of the mid-1800s, desperately dreaming of forging a Northwest Passage. As Sir John Franklin embarks on his fourth Arctic voyage, he defies the warnings of the native people, and his journey ends in ice and death. But his spirit lingers in the Canadian north, where 150 years later, in 1990, Inuit elders dream of long-gone seal-hunting days and teenagers sniff gasoline. And when a white man seduces and leaves pregnant a young Indian woman, he becomes Franklin reincarnated, bound for the same fate. Vollmann's vivid characters and landscapes weave together the stories of the past and present to live out America's ongoing tragedy of greed, ignorance, and violence.\"The form and sweep of the novel beg comparison to \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/i\u003e . . . Nothing prepares you for the visceral chill of \u003ci\u003eThe Rifles\u003c\/i\u003e.\" \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Atlanta Journal \u0026amp; Constitution \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Striking . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Rifles\u003c\/i\u003e recreates the heroic, harrowing dimensions, tragic, fatuous, and comic of the Franklin expedition. . . . It presents a vivid picture of life in the Arctic Circle today, both what seems eternal about it and what has changed.\" \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--The Boston Globe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"An ambitious literary gambit. . . Sharp, often lyrical, and sometimes achingly beautiful.\"\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e --The Washington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eWilliam T. Vollmann is the author of ten novels, including \u003ci\u003eEurope Central\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the National Book Award.  He has also written four collections of stories, including \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eAtlas\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction, a memoir, and six works of nonfiction, including \u003ci\u003eRising Up and Rising Down\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eImperial\u003c\/i\u003e, both of which were finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  His journalism and fiction have been published in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHarpers\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGranta\u003c\/i\u003e, and many other publications.","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302566514917,"sku":"NP9780140176230","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780140176230.jpg?v=1767741237","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-rifles-isbn-9780140176230","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}