The Pillagers' Guide to Arctic Pianos - by Kendra Langford Shaw (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

For readers of Karen Russell, Maggie Shipstead, and Eowyn Ivey, an exuberant, highly imaginative epic about a family that settles, against all odds, in the far reaches of the Arctic and the unexpected industry that keeps them afloat for generations.

In the far reaches of the Territory of the Arctic, the Spahr family lives on a fjord accessible only by kayak and float plane, in a landscape rapidly changing as glaciers melt and sea levels rise. Their home is Jubilation House, aptly named: they are a family of free spirit and full-hearted love, descendants of the homesteaders who came to this place in a reckless scheme to civilize the Glacial Front. They live off the grid in a converted fisherman's shack, selling pickled octopus and sea crops, barely scraping by. With every day, their livelihood seems ever more precarious.

Then one of their few neighbors dredges up a centuries-old piano, a vestige from the original homesteading expedition, when every family was required to haul a six-hundred-pound instrument as a sign of mannerly society--almost none made it to their final destination. Now, this intricately carved beauty has emerged, perfectly preserved from the frigid Arctic waters, and the antique treasure becomes a priceless collectors' item. A new economic boom seizes the territory--piano hunting--and the Spahrs throw themselves into the quest with full-throated aplomb. But the costs of their possible salvation soon begin to mount.

The Pillagers' Guide to Arctic Pianos travels through generations, backward to the Spahrs' homesteader origins and forward to their descendants, eccentrics and optimists all. In a voice as buoyant and vibrant as the characters themselves, Kendra Langford Shaw gives us an unforgettable and inventive ode to the abiding love of family and pull of home, even as the home we love becomes ever more challenging to inhabit.

Review Quotes

"The Pillagers' Guide to Arctic Pianos is a vividly imagined generational saga bursting with bold adventure and bottomless hope. Kendra Langford Shaw brilliantly evokes an unforgettable cast of dreamers, trailblazers, and pillagers on a quest for home in the luminous but brutal wilderness, where they all must discover that the real treasure is each other. A wholly original, utterly absorbing debut. I loved it."
--Shelley Read, bestselling author of Go As a River

"The Pillagers' Guide to Arctic Pianos is an exquisitely rendered tale of the generations who call an ever-changing Alaskan landscape home. I am full of admiration for Kendra Langford Shaw's rich language, the taut weave of so many compelling voices, and above all, the stunning singularity of the world she has created."
--Lily Brooks-Dalton, bestselling author of The Light Pirate and Ruins

"Kendra Langford Shaw has created a world equal parts real and fantastical, evoking both our frontier-questing past and our ecologically uncertain future. Rowdy and boisterous, yet deeply heartfelt and thoughtful, this debut novel is a delight."
--Stacey Swann, author of Olympus, Texas

"The Pillagers' Guide to Arctic Pianos is a wondrously inventive, multi-generational epic, by turns playful and poignant, about the lives and objects we bequeath to the future. Shaw's brilliant debut imagines an Arctic as fantastical as anything in the Florida of Karen Russell's Swamplandia."
--Peter Ho Davies, author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

About the Author

KENDRA LANGFORD SHAW holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, and has had fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her stories have appeared in the Antioch Review, StoryQuarterly, and The Mid-American Review. Born in Alaska, she is now a City Councilwoman in Billings, Montana, where she lives with her husband and two young children.