By the New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a powerful true story of adventure and obsession in the Antarctic, lavishly illustrated with color photographs
Henry Worsley was a devoted father and husband, a decorated British Special Forces officer, a person who believed in honor and tradition. And a man obsessed. He'd spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the famous polar explorer who came ninety seven nautical miles short of being the first man to cross Antarctica on foot, and later led the legendary H.M.S. Endurance expedition. He had modeled his military career on Shackleton's leadership skills, and spent a fortune collecting artifacts from Shackleton's expeditions. A distant relative of Worsley had been with Shackleton on The Endurance, which heightened his sense of connection. He resolved to follow in his hero's footsteps, and succeed where Shackleton failed, in the most brutal landscape in the world.
In 2009, after years of training and gathering supplies, Henry was ready to pick up where Shackleton had left off. Teaming with other descendants of Shackleton's crew, he set off for Antarctica. Battling the frozen, desolate landscape, life-threatening physical exhaustion and hidden crevasses, they managed to reach their goal. But for Worsley, it wasn't enough. In November 2015, at age 55, he began a new quest: To walk across the continent of Antarctica by himself.
David Grann tells Worsley's remarkable story with the intensity and narrative power that has led him to be called "simply the best narrative nonfiction writer working today." Illustrated with over fifty stunning photographs from Worsley's and Shackleton's journeys, The White Darkness is both a gorgeous keepsake volume and an unputdownable adventure story of a man pushing himself to the extremity of human capacity.
