99
on the boat if it comes to it. One of
the crew members asks her why she’s
so tired of living. She says to herself:
“It’s not life I’m tired of, with its
astonishing ocean currents and layers
of ice and all the delicate feathers that
make up a wing. It’s myself.”
As the Saghani continues on its
dangerous trip, it becomes clear that
Franny is not the person she says she
is. Her passport is not her own. She’s
writing letters to her husband
but never sends them. The
novel flips to earlier parts of
Franny’s life, revealing the
traumas of her past and the
fierce attachment she has to
the sea.
In piecing together who
this mysterious protagonist
really is, McConaghy creates a detailed
portrait of a woman on the cusp of
collapse, consumed with a world that is
every bit as broken as she is. Migrations
offers a grim window into a future that
doesn’t feel very removed from our
own, which makes Franny’s voice
all the more powerful. In understanding
how nature can heal us, McConaghy
underlines why it urgently needs to
be protected.
In Charlotte MCConaghy’s adult
debut Migrations, animals are dying at
an alarmingly fast rate. There are no
more bears in the north or reptiles in
the south. Big cats have disappeared.
Wolves too. The novel’s quiet, bird-
loving protagonist Franny Stone is
specifically concerned with the Arctic
tern, which has the longest migration of
any animal in the world. The last flock
is on its final descent, flying from the
Arctic to the Antarctic,
and Franny is determined
to follow it.
The issue, though, is
that Franny has no way
of doing so—she doesn’t
have a boat and has never
sailed professionally.
Migrations opens in
Greenland, where Franny tracks down
the captain of the Saghani and talks her
way aboard. By chasing the terns, she
argues, the crew will find the fish they
desperately need to catch.
Immediately, the water is rough
and the wind is freezing. Shortly into
their journey, the vessel has to navigate
around an iceberg, which McConaghy
describes with thrilling intensity. But
Franny isn’t scared—she’s ready to die
FICTION
Following the last flight
By Annabel Gutterman
FICTION
A recipe for
Disaster
Thirty-something Yona Ko
has spent the past 10 years
of her life working as a
programming coordinator
for Jungle, a travel agency
that specializes in disaster
tourism. Though she’s one
of Jungle’s top employees,
she tries to resign after
being sexually assaulted by
a colleague. But when she
hands in her resignation
letter, Yona is met with
an intriguing offer: a paid
trip to one of Jungle’s
destinations.
South Korean author
Yun Ko-eun’s sharp novel
The Disaster Tourist, newly
translated by Lizzie Buehler,
follows Yona as she travels
to the fictional island of
Mui. She’s experiencing
Jungle’s “Desert Sinkhole”
package —it’s one of many
that the company offers
for travelers to explore
areas once destroyed by
disasters. Along the way,
Yona meets fellow tourists,
like a college student who
is excited by Jungle’s insur-
ance plan and the “massive
payout” they’ll send to his
parents if he dies on the trip.
The Disaster Tourist
becomes increasingly thrill-
ing and strange when Yona
discovers a plan for a man-
made disaster that will bring
in much-needed money but
will devastate the island. As
Yona wrestles with her own
involvement in the plan, Yun
constructs a darkly funny
and disturbing portrait of
the tourism industry—and
the lengths we’ll travel to
survive in a world that runs
on greed. —A.G.
A grim
window into
a world with
far fewer
animals
MCCONAGHY: EMMA DANIELS
△
McConaghy, who lives in Sydney, is making her U.S. adult-fiction
debut after publishing eight young-adult books in Australia
