Landfalls - Naomi Williams

In Spring 1785, Jean-Francois de Galaup, comte de Laperouse, was appointed by King Louis XVI to take charge of an expedition to the South Seas. The purpose of the mission was to build on the discoveries of the English Captain Cook, updating maps, establishing trading relationships and generally contributing to French scientific studies. His expedition consisted of two ships, The Boussole and The Astrolabe, with a crew of 114 men, including 10 scientists.

The expedition achieved several notable successes, proving the effectiveness of Cook’s navigation techniques, and becoming the first Europeans to set foot on the island of Maui, but Laperouse was plagued by disasters; twenty one sailors died in strong currents off Alaska, and a further twelve were killed by islanders in Samoa. Finally, after reaching Australia, both ships ran aground on reefs near the island of Vanikoro. Some survivors were killed by islanders, while the rest attempted to escape in a longboat, never to be seen again.

In her debut novel, Naomi Williams recreates the expedition, using multiple narrative perspectives to tell the story of the crew and many of the people they encountered on their voyage. Aside from the captain, we also hear from characters as diverse as an Inuit girl, who sees the French as 'snow men' with war canoes, the ship's doctor and priest, two escaped English convicts and a diplomat's son travelling across Russia accompanied by a young Cossack soldier. By showing incidents from multiple points of view, Williams is able to examine the myths that have grown up around the expedition, highlighting the way in which surviving written accounts have become official in the absence of testimony from survivors.

The historical context of the expedition adds a further level of intrigue to the characters’ actions. They expect to return to France in 1789, by which time France will be stranger to them than any of the lands they have visited. The experiments conducted by the savants on board pale in comparison to the giant social experiment being carried out at home. This uncertainty is reflected in the sailors’ personal situations. Laperouse, for example, leaves France believing, but not sure, that his wife is pregnant. Unable to rely on any reliable news from home, he is unsure whether he will return home to find a child or not.

A series of expeditions were sent to either rescue the sailors from Laperouse’s expedition, or discover their remains. In 1826, objects from the ship were discovered by the Irish captain Peter Dillon, and subsequently identified by the last surviving member of the crew. The remains of the ships themselves were discovered in 1964, and within the last 10 years, teams of scientists have set out to investigate the mystery of the expedition, and piece together its final days. Landfalls is Williams’ attempt to provide a human story to complement the historical one, using a novelist’s tools to augment the records left from the ship.  

Williams organises her narrative into a series of events, each with its own narrator and style: some are told in the third person, some from individual perspectives; other chapters are made up of letters or diary entries. The characters are all distinctive and vividly drawn, while the scope of the storytelling justifies comparison with David Mitchell. Landfalls is a light, enjoyable read, skillfully written and engaging, but lacks the depth required to make it a real standout.