The Balloonist - Softcover

There can no longer be any question whatever that MacDonald Harris is one of our major novelists.

The Balloonist just took me over. I loved it... an immensely entertaining book that is, at the same time, much more, interweaving the scientific, the sensual, and the philosophic. I couldn't put it down.--Michael Malone

It is July 1897, at the northernmost reach of the inhabited world. A Swedish scientist, an American journalist, and a young, French-speaking adventurer climb into a wicker gondola suspended beneath a huge, red-and-white balloon. The ropes are cut, the balloon rises, and the three begin their voyage: an attempt to become the first people to set foot on the North Pole, and return, borne on the wind. Philip Pullman says in his foreword: "Once I open any of MacDonald Harris’s novels I find it almost impossible not to turn and read on, so delightful is the sensation of a sharp intelligence at work. In The Balloonist , we see all of his qualities at their best."