I brought this book with me on the yearly visit to see Andrea’s family for Christmas; it’ll probably be the last book I read this year. It’s a memoir about a cruise that Diski took, in pursuit of a kind of Earthly oblivion, to Antarctica. But only somewhat. It’s primarily a reflection about her experience with depression and its relationship to the fucked up things her parents did to her as a child. Her reflections have a surprisingly, given what you learn about her childhood, equanimous tone with just the right amount of snark. I found a lot of passages throughout the book to be deeply relatable. This has been on my reading list for a few years and I’m glad I finally made the time to read it.
There’s a hilarious description of elephant seals on page 148.