Book two of a trilogy
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Night Navigation, first published in 2009, is the second novel of a trilogy. Each novel is written to stand alone. Book 3, Doing Time Outside was published in August, 2013. Book 1, Rope & Bone, was released in July, 2014.
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Summary
Night Navigation opens on a black-ice night in upstate New York: Mark Merrick has lined up a bed near the Canadian border to begin detoxing from a heroin addiction. With his license suspended and unable to get a ride, Mark’s mother, Del, with much trepidation, agrees to make the long drive north.
Through the four seasons, Night Navigation takes us into the deranged, darkly humorous world of the addict—from break-your-arm-dealers, to boot-camp rehabs, to Rumi-spouting NA sponsors. Al-Anon tells Del to “Let go;” NAMI says “Hang on.” And yet, all during this long year’s night of relapse and despair, always there are those random flare-ups of hope as Mark and Del steer toward the light.
Excerpts
1
Home
The house is cold. He doesn’t look at her, just sits hunched at the kitchen table, with the hood of his sweatshirt up: under cover. Her son. He is even thinner than when she left.
The stink of cigarettes. Something rotting in the dark of a cupboard and the sink is right to the top with dirty dishes, hardened strings of spaghetti, grease congealed in a pan. A still life. She could paint it on a wall of canvas: Moldy glasses big as barrels, their funhouse faces wavering beyond. Welcome Home.
The wood box is empty. She knows, without even going in there, what the bottom of the tub looks like. One whole end of the pole barn will be stacked high with trash, a month’s worth of garbage, leaking random pools on the floor. And all of it is pretty much how she thought it would be given what he was up to when she left.
“I’m too sick to do anything,” he says. His hands pull at the sides of his hood.
“I can see that.” Close the shutters. Goodbye.
“Luke took off running with Bensons’ dogs just before you came up the road.”
When Luke didn’t come rushing to greet her, she’d hoped it was only this. How she’s missed that dog.
“Some woman from your painters’ group called. It’s on the machine.” He finally looks her way. “If you can drive me up to Carla’s to get enough to where I can function for the next few days, I’ll be able to make the calls to line up a bed at a detox. I’ll get some wood in, clean up around here. Make me almost normal.”
The alternating voices of Night Navigation:
Del:
She turns the ringers off, turns down the answering machine. Drug dramas and manic depression: hard to know which roller coaster you’re riding. At least twenty years that any call in the night registers 10 on her adrenaline Richter. During what she thinks of as Tarbaby-time, say when he’s got another knot of infection swelling his arm that’s red-lining its way to his heart and she’s driving him to emergency again, she wishes he’d just go ahead and kill himself and put them all out of their misery. Other times she’s sure this is the best place for him to be. His father’s, his brother’s ashes buried up on their hill. They’re all here together: Working on it.
Mark:
He dials the hospital numbers. He knows to get admitted all he has to do is tell the truth. Yes, he’s got Medicare and Medicaid. He last used 30 minutes ago. Morphine. He prefers not to mention his pharmaceutical source. He’s been using since maybe he was 13: LSD, marijuana. Lots of LSD. Heroin. Off and on since he was in his late-twenties. He’s dual diagnosis. Bipolar disorder. Onset probably about 13. Though all was not well long before that he’s sure. The hospital switches him to Gregorian chants. Then an all-business woman is back in his ear. He’s on the waiting list.
Reviews
“As Night Navigation undulates between Del’s point of view and Mark’s, Howard lets their tense interactions and inability to communicate propel the novel, never attempting to rationalize their problems or forcing them to succumb to psychoanalytic clichés.”
— New York Times Book Review,
An Editor’s Choice, July 5, 2009
“Night Navigation. . . is so smooth a telling of a rough ride that you’d think it was the author’s fourth, fifth or sixth book, not her first. . . even greater is the fact that she was able to take us with her. Ginnah Howard is a writer to watch.”
— The Washington Times Book Review,
May 5, 2009
“This dark debut is a wrenching account of a mother and son moving together and apart in an increasingly tragic family drama. In alternating memoirs, Del and Mark deal with heroin addiction and mental illness (his) and fears (hers) of a fate marked by junkies, pushers, halfway houses and recovery programs. But it’s the persistent ghosts of a father and another son, and the guilt over their deaths that hold Del and Mark in a vise grip. Between grief and addiction, there’s no easy forgiveness for these sad survivors. Through one bitter, lonely year, Mark and Del lose and find one another repeatedly, and they come to realize that loving someone means letting them love themselves. Howard is a graceful, spare and fluid writer, and her somber and bleak novel has the power to lift and inspire.”
— Publishers Weekly review,
January 12, 2009
“Night Navigation is unerring in its grasp of the multiple deceptions of the addictive relationship, the self-deception above all. You can’t help getting furious at these characters. And you canvt help loving them.”
— Peter Trachtenberg, author of
The Book of Calamities
“Kafka wrote that a book must be the axe to the frozen sea inside us. Ginnah Howard’s astonishing debut novel, Night Navigation, is just such an axe: sharp and fierce, enlivening and enlightening. Howard’s gripping tale… lays bare the marrow of familial love—its messy desperation and its stubborn, enduring beauty.”
— Maud Casey, author of Genealogy,
A New York Times Editor’s Choice
“Ginnah Howard’s raw, vivid account of addiction and codependency unflinchingly explores the vast darkness of guilt and despair. The stark, urgent voices of mother and son ache with anger and love, fear and hope. Howard’s ability to dive so deep into the human psyche is a testament to her grace and compassion as a writer. Night Navigation will leave you breathless—a haunting, riveting debut.”
— Kiara Brinkman, author of
Up High in the Trees
Starred review…“Howard’s strength, besides lapidary language, is the ability to build scenes around quotidian activities: starting a wood stove, cleaning, walking a dog, cooking chili and, in a pivotal segment, plotting to banish a large colony of attic-dwelling bats. The red tape and repetitiveness of coping with an addicted adult child fuels suspense as the most pressing question persists: Will Del ever be free of the onus, even just in memory, of caring for all the tormented men in her life? Such stark scenarios will be cathartic for readers who have dealt with them firsthand, and profoundly cautionary for those who haven’t.”
— Kirkus Review (3/1/2009)
“Junkies, cons, brothers, sons, mothers, lovers—how can Ginnah Howard know all these sorts so inwardly, so passionately well and weave together their lives so suspensefully? Hers is a tour de force of the most valuable, the most poetic, the hardest earned insights—those that are intensely felt, imagined, lived. I don’t recall ever having been so struck by a first novel before.”
— Matt Leone, Director
Colgate Writers’ Conference
“A gritty, unblinking, compassionate portrait of addiction—the deceptions, the exhausting repetitions, and most of all the agonizing dilemmas of parental love, which may or may not have the power to save but can never stop trying.”
— Joan Wickersham, author of the
National Book Award Finalist,
The Suicide Index
“In this bold debut, Ginnah Howard navigates the precarious lives of her people with searing compassion and devastating honesty, opening our hearts to the dark wonder of shared grief and the flickering hope of forgiveness. Mark and Del Merrick’s harrowing journey reminds us there is love beyond death, mercy in the flight of birds, and joy in the wake of sorrow.”
— Melanie Rae Thon, author of
Sweethearts
“I fully enjoyed and admired this sparely written, unsparing portrait of a deeply troubled American family. Ginnah Howard is a wonderful new writer.”
— Hilma Wolitzer, author of
Summer Reading
Reader Commentary
Many readers of Night Navigation have sent heartfelt messages; here are excerpts from some of them:
“I just started reading your book and looked at my husband and said, ‘This is our life…’”
“I love how you do Mark interpreting his Mom–i love how you do her trying to step back, the emotional flailing…certain phrases: emotional temperature (good god, i think, we are all so obvious) and the umbilical SOS.”
“I was completely drawn into the emotional roller coaster worlds of Del and Mark. I found it hard to put the book down.”
“It’s unbelievable how much I could relate to your story!!! Thank you for writing your book and touching our lives, and many others, with your story!”
“I very much appreciated the humanity, the compassion, that you showed in the character of Mark–his expression of kindness and efforts to care for or be considerate of Del despite his problems or when he was capable…I think it is a fuller picture of the humanity of someone with mental illness than I’ve ever seen portrayed in fiction. And the world could simply use this.”
“I AM Del!!! Well, of course not. But I have NEVER ever felt so connected, so identified with a character. For that matter, nor have I shared such a seemingly similar emotional and real history with another human being!”
“I was a little surprised at some of the comments in the reviews, like ‘depressing,’ ‘exhausting.’ … I felt there was so much insight, creativity, buoyancy, light — in the writing itself and in the minds of Del and, yes, even Mark. I guess I thought that even readers who had no experience with mental illness, suicide or drug addiction would still find a lot to relate to.”
“The story is written from the mother’s, as well as the son’s, perspective. This mode gives great insight into the internal struggles that go on with all involved parties and aid the reader in understanding how hard it is to make good choices when dealing with such tragic circumstances.”
“Wow, I cried. It should give people strength and if not that at least some perspective on their own difficulties.”
“As the mother of a young son, I’m keenly aware of the depth of love I have for him and the lengths to which I would go in order to keep him safe. This book takes that so much further, to a place I hope never to find myself, and I could not put it down.”
“Night Navigation isn’t a novel just about addiction; it touches all the facets of being a life-long parent. There’s so much said about ‘letting go’ and it’s encouraging to read about ‘holding on.’ How can any of us mete out our love for our children? I rooted for Del Merrick all the way through.”
“A heart-wrenching portrayal of the world of addiction as well as a believable/honest portrayal of a mother’s unconditional/inexhaustible love for her child.”
“There are many wonderful tales of perilous journeys in novels and film, and I believe this novel is one of them…this novel helps us all as human beings in our own lives figure out how to cultivate that heart-wide-open, eyes-wide open gaze.”
“I have started your book very slowly… It has thunderstruck me.”
“I was really impressed when I finished and did not feel ‘down’ by all the hard scenes and sadness. It is so usual for people to roll over and go numb when faced with addictions, or on the other hand to glorify them as some sort of special god trial the select few go through.”
“Your novel was an eye opener for me and I found that it was addictive in itself. Once I started I was hard pressed to set it down.”
“…I loved the spareness. There were so many points in the book where I read a deceptively simple sentence (or a few sentences) that said so much and I can’t tell you how much I love that—how much I appreciate that, as a reader. Some were dryly comic: ‘Richard doesn’t answer certain kinds of questions.’ This says so much more, yes? Finally, I have to say that the ending hit me like a freight train…I cannot really describe how unexpected, how emotional that was for me—what hope it gave me for both Del’s and Mark’s stories.”
“It was actually physically hard to read! What I mean by that is that with your descriptions and oh so real conversations and inner thoughts, you brought back old worries, innard-clenchings — really this book is very strong for anybody who’s ever sat in any kind of circle and ‘worked on’ the things that are really bothering them.”
“I’m reading your book for the second time, less emotionally. It is really beautiful. And of course sad and has been inspiring some healthy time doing the ‘Oprah thing’ with my mother—which is not something we do without a big push!”
“sometimes i see life transformed into art as exploitive and sometimes i see it as paying homage — how when writing fiction you can enter any moment held in your memory and it opens like a room which can be described forever — it gives a three-dimensionality to what seemed like just linear time flying by. –your minute, delicate observations, the care you take in construction, in getting the right sounds and rhythms, in hitting the right tone. that care is almost religious to me, a kind of moral approach an earnest writer takes toward using life and working it into their art. i can often sense when a writer doesn’t have that sensibility — the characters, the place, even life itself seems cheapened.”