Impossible Owls Essays from the Ends of the World

'Hilarious, nimble and thoroughly illuminating' Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railway From its opening journey into remote Alaska for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska, a quest that culminates on the frozen sea between the United States and Russia, Brian Phillips's Impossible Owls leads us on a kaleidoscopic exploration of contemporary reality. He takes us to a sumo tournament in Japan, where he becomes obsessed with the suicide of a famous writer; to the jungle in India, where he considers the intertwined histories of conservation movements and man-eating tigers; to the studio of a great Russian animator; to a royal tour of the Yukon Teritory with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge; and into the weird heart of America, where he visits the gates of Area 51. Exhilarating, moving and insightful, this remarkable debut visits borders both real and imagined, and asks what it means, in our age, to travel to the end of the map.