Midnight Sun
By Ben Towle
Slave Labor

“Midnight Sun is a work of fiction,” Ben Towle is quick to point out at the start of his afterword to this collection of his five-issue Slave Labor series. It’s an important thing to get out of the way at the top of the proceedings. After all, one could be easily forgiven for thinking that the book, a tale of a reporter sent out in search of the survivors of a Antarctic airship crash, is largely a work of historical fact.

It’s mistake which is largely justified by Towle’s next sentence, “This much is fact, though: on May 25th, on her way back from the North Pole, the airship Italia crashed on the arctic ice pack, killing one crewman on impact, stranding nine, and carrying off the remaining six.” The author lists off a few more facts, culminating with the rhetorical, “how much of Midnight Sun is true? If by ‘true’ one means ‘factual,’ then the answer is: ‘not a whole lot.’”

Towle’s most notable amendment to the historical events that form the backbone of Midnight Sun is the creation of the story’s protagonist, H.R. It’s something of a shocking revelation after the close of the story, as, in many ways, the alcoholic journalist who serves as the story’s lead also feels like one of the most genuine entry points for Towle’s book. A reporter with a good amount of potential which has largely been hampered by his penchant for booze, H.R.’s journey on boat to help locate the crashed airship largely serves as a grounding from the heroic events occurring on the amongst the crewmembers struggling for survival on oceanic ice drifts. Towle is successful in pitting these contrasting scenarios against one another.

Were Midnight Sun some big budget movie or mass market paperback, H.R. would almost certainly be tasked with rescuing the crew himself, via some death-defying action scene. Instead, he spends the bulk of the story in the relative comfort of his ship, dressed in his suit and indulging in the addiction that helped land him a spot on the boat in the first place. While he certainly undergoes some changes as a character over the course of the book, through interactions with his shipmates and a few moments of Shawshank-esque redemption, they’re largely and rightfully dwarfed by the life-and-death struggle surrounding him.

It all makes for a tightly-crafted bit of work, which largely avoids the trappings of similar stories, a package that is nicely rounded out by the starkness of Towle’s lines, a style perfectly suited to his desolate setting.

–Brian Heater