Laurel, in her mid-thirties, arrives at the Mcmurdo Antarctic Research Station not as a mycologist researching mushrooms and fungi, but as a kitchen worker, scrubbing pots and floors. She is sunk in grief, although we do not discover until more than a third of the way into the novel that she is mourning her eight-year-old son. She is divorced from Eli, her husband and soulmate.
Laurel shares a room with two women: Nita Chaudhry, a marine biologist who studies cephalopods, and Charlie, an illustrator. Nita is married to Sanjeet and spends half the year with him in San Francisco, while at the station she is paired with Sam, her “ice wife”. Many people at the station have “ice wives” and “ice husbands”, while maintaining different lives when they return stateside. Laurel throws herself into the hard work of the kitchens and is befriended by Louis, a gay kitchen worker in his fifth year at the station.
Gradually, we understand that Laurel is hiding from the world. She grew up as an only child on an apple orchard and sheep farm in Wisconsin, which her father, Pete, ran according to organic and humane principles. Her mother, Clare, was a constant, steady presence in her life, and has accepted Laurel’s choices in the aftermath of what happened.
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