Rifles

<b>The story of John Franklin's doomed 1845 attempt to discover a Northwest Passage from the National Book Award-winning author of <i>Europe Central</i></b> <p/>Vaulting through time to another flashpoint in the long struggle between Indians and Europeans William T. Vollmann's visionary fictional history now focuses on the white explorers of the mid-1800s desperately dreaming of forging a Northwest Passage. As Sir John Franklin embarks on his fourth Arctic voyage he defies the warnings of the native people and his journey ends in ice and death. But his spirit lingers in the Canadian north where 150 years later in 1990 Inuit elders dream of long-gone seal-hunting days and teenagers sniff gasoline. And when a white man seduces and leaves pregnant a young Indian woman he becomes Franklin reincarnated bound for the same fate. Vollmann's vivid characters and landscapes weave together the stories of the past and present to live out America's ongoing tragedy of greed ignorance and violence.