Shepard traverses both borders and centuries, seamlessly inhabiting a multitude of disparate men and women, and giving voice to visionaries, pioneers, and secret misfits--from nineteenth-century explorers departing on one of the Arctic´s most nightmarish expeditions to twentieth-century American military wives maintaining hope at home. Shepard´s characters confront everything from the emotional pitfalls of everyday life to colossal catastrophes, battling natural forces, the hazards of new technology, and their own implacable shortcomings.