The Afterlife of George Cartwright — John Steffler

For George Cartwright - soldier, explorer, naturalist, entrepreneur, gentleman, adventurer - time stopped on May 19, 1819, the day of his death. In the 170 years since, his spirit has wandered the byways of his youth, his mind returning always to the voluminous journals he once kept. He is searching for something. Perhaps a final resting place. Perhaps the meaning of the life he led.
A work of extraordinary imaginative power and rich historical detail, The Afterlife of George Cartwright is the invented life of the eighteenth-century explorer who was among the first to push into the wilderness of Labrador. Buoyantly self-confident, fearless in the face of harrowing perils and constant hardship, full of inexhaustible energy, and with a passionate love for the land and its people, Cartwright epitomizes the best of the European encounter with the New World. But he also epitomizes the worst, for the very qualities that fueled him also guaranteed disaster: brash self-confidence meant ruthless ego, consuming appetite led to senseless destruction, and even love proved lethal.
In the hands of a lesser winter, George Cartwright's life would be the stuff of melodrama. In the hands of John Steffler, this protean clay is given such shape, color, and texture that we are transported, coming to understand - even as Cartwright's spirit does by book's end - the full meaning of the man, the full intensity of the life. Steffler's miracle is to make George Cartwright, for all his flaws, move us to compassion and to a deeper appreciation of how easy it is to do harm even when one wants only to do good.