When Humans Stray — Seven Animals Bite Back
Venturing towards the North Pole, Westerman lends his ear to seven creatures of the arctic
For 400 years, European seafarers attempted to sail over the top of the globe for a shorter trading route. The famous polar explorer William Barentsz, who lent his name to the Barents Sea, died a hero, after becoming stranded in Novaya Zemlya in northern Russia. Today, however, he would have been able to complete his route in the summer.
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Ostensibly leaving the ‘inhabited world’ behind, but encountering tourists along the way, Westerman retraces this journey, drawing on historical accounts and a seaman’s journal. More than the human quest, he focuses on the animals the ship’s crew encountered on their travels: from polar bears fought, to eels eaten and lemmings spotted. Westerman’s adventure spins the reader across time to the fate of the seven species today and their clashes with humans. These are animals on the move in an ever-changing landscape, confronted by human trespasses: dikes, overfishing, border conflicts and more. Westerman draws on contemporary thought like The Parliament of Things to ponder what rights animals should have and how we can co-exist in harmony.
Each chapter, cross-cut with the 1596 epic journey through arctic wastelands, becomes both a clever allegory and a rip-roaring tale. A narwhal tusk is used to allay a 2019 terrorist attack in London; Walt Disney buys up pet lemmings from Inuit children to chase over a cliff; Russia and Norway play out their new cold war using reindeer as pawns; a 1932 cold case concerning the mass death of brent geese is solved; and Frank risks his own life and that of his daughter camping in Svalbard on the site of a deadly polar bear attack. When Humans Stray is a thrilling literary read that contains an urgent message.
Westerman’s bestiary comprises seven magnificent creatures: the lemming, the narwhal, the eel, the polar bear, the brent goose, the reindeer and the king crab
Placing animals on an equal footing with humans, it explores the historical relationship and what our treatment of animals (and the planet) says about us
Westerman tracks not just the migration routes of these wild animals but humankind’s movements in the north and the geopolitics of today
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The Susjin Agency Ltd
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“An epic adventure serves throughout the book as a stepping stone for animal stories. That epic itself provides all the story elements you could wish for: hardships, dangers, discoveries, heroism and poignant human interest.”
“In everything, you feel the virtuosity. With a deceptively simple, Mozartian lightness, Westerman strings together diverse narrators, eras and biotopes in harmonious elegance.’”
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