The first three-quarters was a gritty look at the Allbright family as they struggled to settle into the wilds of Alaska and deal with the trouble within their own family. This family saga felt like two different books. My Review: Kristin Hannah's latest book is a story about a family in turmoil set against the ruthless yet stunning beauty of Alaska in 1974. It is the finest example of Kristin Hannah's ability to weave together the deeply personal with the universal. About the highest stakes a family can face and the bonds that can tear a community apart, this is a novel as spectacular and powerful as Alaska itself. With her trademark combination of elegant prose and deeply drawn characters, Kristin Hannah has delivered an enormously powerful story that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the remarkable and enduring strength of women. At once an epic story of human survival and love, and an intimate portrait of a family tested beyond endurance, The Great Alone offers a glimpse into a vanishing way of life in America. Utterly unprepared for the weather and the isolation, but welcomed by the close-knit community, they fight to build a home in this harsh, beautiful wilderness.

Cora Allbright and her husband Ernt, a recently-returned Vietnam veteran scarred by the war, uproot their thirteen-year-old daughter Leni to start a new life in Alaska. A story of a family in crisis struggling to survive at the edge of the world, it is also a story of young and enduring love. with some nuzzled in his arms.First Line: 'That spring, rain fell in great sweeping gusts that rattled the rooftops.'īook Description from GoodReads: Alaska, 1974. In the movie, Mackey is nuzzling all of his dogs regularly, sleeps with them outside at times!. I was not going to participate until I understood this: not torture but fulfillment for them. 'LETS GO!' You HAVE to stand on the brake when stopping or they will take off. From the second these dogs are hooked up, they are lunging to pull, yapping, up on their hind legs, vocal.

NOTE ON DOG ABUSE: I mushed ( 20 minutes) by a Colorado family that used 'retired' sled dogs for tourists for these brief outings of 90 minutes. Mackey is an unlikely hero in the Iditarod, a 1000 mile race through grueling Alaskan wilderness, not a polished man but rough hewn and flawed but who appears MADE for just this sport. The documentary plays out without maudlin hype, with excellent camera work- you are right THERE-warts and all.

as much a story of man against nature, man against himself, and man against man as any story you would ever watch.

The great alone review