A Short Review of Across the Great Lake, by Lee Zacharias

Across the Great Lake by Lee Zacharias

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I came across a review of this beautiful novel that described the novel as "haunted." Yes. Fern Halvorsen, the 85-year-old narrator is haunted by the past and "a childhood journey across Lake Michigan and the secret she has kept since that ill-fated voyage" (Goodreads). She is haunted by the mother who was dying when her father, Henrik Halvorsen took her on this trip in the frigid winter of 1936, on the ship he captained, the Manitou, a huge ship ferrying railroad cars across the lake.

Fern loved the shop, the journey: "It was a huge and powerful ship with a tall, handsome pilothouse and big smoking stacks, no place for a girl, though I loved it, I cannot tell you how much I loved it."
She befriends a stray cat and Alv, a young deckhand befriends her--and they, too, come to haunt her.

But even as she revels in the voyage and its freedom, there are warnings. When a ghost ship is seen, the crew knows danger is coming.

Now Fern, an old woman, remembers.

Beautifully written and painstakingly researched, Across the Great Lake is an experience that will come to haunt the reader. At least this haunting is a good thing.

Across the Great Lake has been named a 2019 Notable Michigan Book and a Finalist for the 2018 Foreword Indies Book of the Year in Literary Fiction.

Recommended.



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