The Quickening

Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth

By: Elizabeth Rush

Narrated by: Helen Laser

An astonishing, vital book about Antarctica, climate change, and motherhood from the author of Rising, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

In 2019, fifty-seven scientists and crew set out onboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer. Their destination: Thwaites Glacier. Their goal: to learn as much as possible about this mysterious place, never before visited by humans, and believed to be both rapidly deteriorating and capable of making a catastrophic impact on global sea-level rise.

In The Quickening, Elizabeth Rush documents their voyage, offering the sublime—seeing an iceberg for the first time; the staggering waves of the Drake Passage; the torqued, unfamiliar contours of Thwaites—alongside the workaday moments of this groundbreaking expedition. A ping-pong tournament at sea. Long hours in the lab. All the effort that goes into caring for and protecting human life in a place that is inhospitable to it. Along the way, she takes readers on a personal journey around a more intimate question: What does it mean to bring a child into the world at this time of radical change?

What emerges is a new kind of Antarctica story, one preoccupied not with flag planting but with the collective and challenging work of imagining a better future. With understanding the language of a continent where humans have only been present for two centuries. With the contributions and concerns of women, who were largely excluded from voyages until the last few decades, and of crew members of color, whose labor has often gone unrecognized. The Quickening teems with their voices—with the colorful stories and personalities of Rush’s shipmates—in a thrilling chorus.

Urgent and brave, absorbing and vulnerable, The Quickening is another essential book from Elizabeth Rush.

©2023 Elizabeth Rush (P)2023 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Helen Laser narrates with a thoughtful style, a smart cadence, and an empathetic tone.… Laser emulates the author's probing journalistic style when she interviews her shipmates on their experiences and captures Rush's personal struggle as she contemplates bringing a child into our environmentally compromised world. Laser vividly delivers Rush's thoughts and experiences, including an account of giving birth the year after she returned.”—AudioFile Magazine

“Award-winning narrator Helen Laser offers a smooth, rich performance, ably communicating scientific data while bringing out the human side of this impressive venture. Laser conveys the lyricism of Rush's writing, which verges on poetic, even when describing the small details of taking samples and analyzing measurements. An elegantly narrated, fully fleshed account of a singular trip to an imperiled place. Listeners and readers of Margaret Lowman's The Arbornaut or Naira de Gracia's The Last Cold Place will love this.”—Library Journal

“The fascinating inside story of climate science at the edge of Antarctica [. . .] In this follow-up to Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, Rush shows us how data collection happens, capturing the intriguing details of climate science in the field [. . .] The scientists are not the only heroes of Rush’s book, which emphasizes above all the collaborative and interdependent nature of such voyages, where so much depends on the staff and crew. In addition to her own poetic voice, the author incorporates the voices of everyone on the ship, highlighting women and racial and ethnic minorities, who have been overlooked in the canon of Antarctic literature.”—Kirkus Reviews

Something I’ve always wanted to do

As a female scientist I’ve always wanted to go to Antarctica. I really enjoyed the thorough interviews and the humanity that brought to the lives of the scientists who work tirelessly and sacrifice their time, our most precious gift, to bring truth to those who wonder. I hope we never see the end of Thwaites but I am grateful it’s being recorded. I also could relate to the internal monologue of being a scientist and contemplating having a child. Representation matters!

Too much talk of a baby

I really wanted to hear what it was like traveling to and visiting Antarctica. I just couldn’t get past the constant and never ending. Talk about the authors interest and whether to have a baby or not.

Connection

This book was a great connection to the people directly involved in and committed to our environment and to addressing the issues of climate change. It definitely provided a clear image of scientists as just being people like everyone else, although they are people more focused on their goals than others are often capable of. Without their tenacity and passion a great deal of knowledge would never be achieved.
The only fault I find is with the format, and that is strictly in terms of how it presents in audio form. When you’re actually reading words, you pick up on changes occurring but if you’re listening to those words, any minor distraction or momentary straying of attention can throw you off. The format of this book, which involved a constant switching of points of view, occasionally threw me for a loop. If I missed the name of whoever was speaking (and a number of times there were a lot of quick changes) I would get confused as to WHO was speaking when I refocused. I would think, oh, the author is gay. No. That was someone else speaking. The author is pregnant…no, that’s another person. I had a lot of those small confusions throughout. I loved the descriptions, the intent, the stories of the individuals, and the obvious passion expressed for the health of our world, but the format was difficult in audio form. Still, this an excellent book and I’m glad I listened.

Worth the read for sure!

An engaging story that, like its subtitle, covers community, life, death, grief, climate change and creation at the edge of the world. It was beautifully written and the narrator did a great job. I enjoyed the interviews and perspectives of the crew as well. There is so much substance to this book. I really enjoyed it.

Terrible narration

The narrator has an incredibly affected way of speaking, intoning every single sentence as if she were making some utterly grave and serious pronouncement. She often ends sentences with an unnatural middle intonation that leaves it hanging. It was so bizarre and unpleasant that it made me dread listening to the book. Eventually I tried pausing the recording and repeating sentences like a normal person, and I realized that it was not the book but the narration that was driving me crazy. Strongly recommend getting a hard copy of this one if you're interested in reading it.