Table of Contents

The MotherThe DaughterThe MedicThe Scientist

About the Author

M Jackson is a geographer, glaciologist, TED Fellow, and National Geographic Society Explorer, the recipient of three U.S. Fulbright grants, and a U.S. Fulbright Ambassadorship. M currently serves as an Arctic Expert for the National Geographic Society. She is the author of the award-winning science books The Secret Lives of Glaciers (2019) and While Glaciers Slept: Being Human in a Time of Climate Change (2015). She's worked for over a decade in the Arctic chronicling climate change and communities, most recently starring in the hit Netflix series Pirate Gold of Adak Island.

Reviews

"I cannot think of another novel that is anything like The Ice Sings Back . . . I keep thinking that what this book is really about, is 'that tremendous diversity of hurts' in the world, and the power of nature to heal them, and humans to survive them to love again." -- Heather Lende, Alaska State Writer Laureate, author of If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name, among others "This novel dares to ask an unusual question about women in wilderness . . . The disappearance of women is at the center of four women's lives, and the act of recovery is the greatest act of love among them. I was spellbound by the originality of this freshly told story." -- Kathryn Trueblood, author of Take Daily As Needed

"The Ice Sings Back is a book about loss that you perhaps would not think a scientist could craft so delicately, in the way a poet could. I found myself feeling cold from the beautiful descriptions of glacial landscapes and warm from panic and fear as if from a fire. If you miss someone, if you've lost someone, you may feel all those emotions coming back up reading this book. What you might not find is closure; that's the point too." -- Prosanta Chakrabarty, author of Explaining Life Through Evolution

"The Ice Sings Back is an ethereal yet grounded story of secrets, injustice, and loss, but also love and reclamation. It defies linear time and language and ultimately is an elegy for all harmed and disappeared women and girls, and for nature's vanishing glaciers." -- Carol Devine, author of The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning

"The Ice Sings Back showcases Jackson's ability to master a variety of voices as she teases your heart and brain with the characters' strengths, vulnerabilities, and levels of humanity. While keeping you gripped in the story, Jackson adroitly weaves in science with the human connection to nature. The landscape develops as its own pulsating character, and the reader feels they are there for both the walks in the cold wind and the cozy moments when the characters are warming themselves by the fire. It is a valuable read for all interested in exploring the depths of women, science, land, and ice." -- Maria Fadiman, PhD, Professor Geosciences, Florida Atlantic University, National Geographic Explorer, and Ethnobotanist

"A haunting, gritty, incisive portrayal of trauma and empathy, M Jackson's The Ice Sings Back may shatter you, but in such a way that you don't ever wish to be reconstituted. It's a powerful fiction debut, alive with vivid landscape imagery and electric dialogue between fascinating, troubled people." --Nathaniel Ian Miller, author of The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven

"A searing, evocative tale of four women who grapple with trauma and experience redemption through a profound affinity with nature and their own innermost desires. Deftly written by a bold new writer equally adept at plumbing the depths of the human soul, navigating the stages of a wilderness search and rescue operation, or lovingly rendering the complex nature of glaciers, The Ice Sings Back grips your heart at the outset, releasing it only reluctantly on the final page." -- Joanna Kafarowski, author of Antarctic Pioneer and The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame

"Amelia, a young autistic girl, goes missing in the Cascades near Eugene, OR, and the lives of four women are irrevocably changed. . . . Each will learn more about what happened to Amelia and about the strength they all have as women. Jackson's eco-thriller conveys the claustrophobia and power of the wilderness in which Amelia is lost and creates a creeping dread as each woman picks through her piece of the puzzle." -- Jane Jorgenson

"In this riveting debut novel Dr. M Jackson weaves together a trenchant tapestry of resilience in a forbidding social and natural landscape. . . .Jackson's prose is haunted with pathos and yet punctuated with staccato moments to provide a reflective and deeply rewarding experience for the reader." --Saleem H. Ali, author of Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life

"Jackson adroitly weaves in science with the human connection to land, plants, and the power of glaciers. A valuable read for all interested in exploring the depths of women, science, land, and ice. M Jackson weaves her training as a scientist, intimate relationship with glaciers, explorer's spirit, sensitivity to social justice, and literary soul into her masterpiece of a first novel." -- Nassim Assefi, author of Aria

PRAISE FOR THE WORK OF M JACKSON'S WHILE GLACIERS SLEPT: "The literary fabric of M. Jackson . . . creates a powerful narrative of humanity." -- Henry Pollack, author of A World Without Ice and a winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize ".This title will interest readers of environmental issues, particularly climate change." -- Library Journal, starred review