The Unsinkable Greta James

Greta James is a thirty-six-year-old indie singer-songwriter and guitarist with a devoted following. Two months before the novel opens, one week after her mother, Helen, died suddenly from a brain aneurysm, Greta attempted to perform an unfinished song called "Astronomy" at a charity concert in Brooklyn. She began crying onstage after seeing an audience member's sign reading "GOODBYE, GRETA'S MOM" and could not restart the song. The footage went viral, her label pushed back her second album and tour, and she has not performed since.

Now in West Hollywood for a photo shoot, Greta fields calls from her brother, Asher, a bank manager in Ohio, who urges her to accompany their seventy-year-old father, Conrad, on the Alaskan cruise Helen had planned for the couple's fortieth wedding anniversary. Greta resists because her relationship with Conrad is strained: He has never supported her music career and has always wished she lived a more conventional life. She agrees when Asher suggests the trip might benefit her as well.

On Saturday, Greta boards the cruise ship Escape in Vancouver carrying her acoustic guitar and wearing her mother's unworn fleece. She joins Conrad and two longtime family-friend couples: Davis and Mary Foster, their former next-door neighbors, and Eleanor and Todd Bloom. Helen's absence hangs over the group. Greta notices a man carrying a typewriter, and they exchange sheepish smiles. She also meets Preeti, a young girl who recognizes her music.

Tensions surface at dinner when Conrad announces that Greta and her ex-boyfriend, Luke Watts, an Australian music producer, have broken up. He criticizes her lifestyle, claiming Helen shared his concerns. That night in her tiny cabin, Greta picks up her guitar and drifts into "Astronomy," inspired by glow-in-the-dark stars Helen once pointed at on her childhood ceiling. The song remains unfinished. On the promenade deck, she meets the man with the typewriter: Ben Wilder, a bestselling author and history professor at Columbia University. They have an easy first conversation, and Greta notices he wears no wedding ring.

On Sunday, Greta learns that Jason Foster, Davis and Mary's son, has gotten engaged. She and Jason had an on-and-off sexual relationship for years and slept together at Helen's funeral while Greta was still with Luke. The news unsettles her, though she does not want Jason's life. She attends Ben's lecture and discovers he wrote One Wild Song, a bestselling novel about Jack London that Helen had loved. Ben reveals he is separated from his wife and has two young daughters. When he later says "told you so" in front of Conrad, Conrad's mood darkens. "Told You So" is Greta's biggest hit, a song about her father's refusal to support her dreams that made him the subject of public scrutiny and deepened the rift between them.

On Monday, Conrad is quarantined with a stomach bug. Greta and Ben travel to the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau. Ben suggests Conrad may be a flawed but well-meaning parent doing his best. They discover they were both in Central Park during the same snowstorm months earlier without crossing paths. That night, Greta visits Conrad in quarantine. He retells the story of meeting Helen and becomes tearful, saying he does not know how to grow old without her.

On Tuesday, as the ship enters Glacier Bay, Greta is consumed by anxiety about Governors Ball (Gov Ball), a major music festival in New York the following Sunday. Mary tells Greta that Helen was proud of her and that the only way through grief is through it. That night, Greta and Ben leave a ship performance, kiss in the hallway, and spend the night together. Ben confesses that meeting her is the best thing that has happened to him in a while.

On Wednesday, in Haines, Greta and Conrad go on the wilderness safari Helen had chosen for them and have their most explosive argument at a glacier. Conrad confronts her: When he called to say Helen was having headaches, Greta chose to stay in Berlin for her festival. She is devastated because she knows he is right but fires back about his lifetime of dismissing her career. Conrad explains that his impoverished upbringing made job security sacred. When she asks if he ever had a dream, he replies that Helen was his dream. Their guide reveals it is the couple's actual fortieth anniversary. Conrad has brought some of Helen's ashes, and they scatter them at the glacier in silence. Greta links her arm through his. On the canoe ride back, they spot a rare Steller's sea eagle far from its native Asian habitat, and the guide jokes that such birds are messengers from the dead. Both father and daughter briefly believe it.

A false news story claims Greta is engaged to Luke. Ben confronts her, and they argue. Luke denies planting the story and urges Greta to take another pass at "Astronomy." Energized, she takes a guitar at the ship's jazz club and plays the song instrumentally. For the first time in months, it feels right. She reconciles with Ben and tells him the full story of her meltdown.

On Thursday, Greta and Ben go whale watching at Icy Strait Point. She confides her deepest guilt: that Conrad called asking her to come home before Helen's aneurysm, and she chose to stay. She invites Ben to Gov Ball, but their connection is abruptly severed when he learns his four-year-old daughter, Hannah, has broken her arm and may need surgery. He leaves the cruise immediately, telling Greta she would not understand because she is not a parent. His words echo Greta's greatest regret about not dropping everything for Helen.

On Friday, the final full day at sea, Greta and Conrad discover that Asher manipulated them both, telling each the trip was to help the other. Mary reveals that Helen had promised the group they could see Greta perform live that summer, explaining Eleanor's persistent requests. At the variety show, Preeti takes the stage to perform Greta's song "Birdsong" but freezes. Greta grabs a ukulele, joins her onstage, and gets her through the song to a standing ovation. Conrad calls Greta fearless, just like her mother. She apologizes for the hurt "Told You So" caused him, and he asks her to write him a song called "Oceanography," the opposite of "Astronomy." That night, Greta reads Ben's childhood copy of The Call of the Wild cover to cover.

On Saturday, the ship returns to Vancouver. Greta gives Conrad a glacier puzzle and flies home. On Sunday at Gov Ball, her manager, Howie, reveals that the label planted the false engagement story as insurance, angering Greta because it means they did not believe in her music. As she walks onstage, she spots Conrad near the front holding a homemade sign reading "GRETA'S DAD," echoing Helen's tradition of holding a "GRETA'S MOM" sign at Greta's shows. Greta signals her band to change the set list. Instead of the planned opening single, the music shifts to "Astronomy." The crowd erupts. This time, she does not hesitate.

In an epilogue titled "After," Greta returns to touring, and her second album receives strong reviews. Conrad begins keeping Helen's scrapbook of Greta's career clippings and establishes a weekly phone call with his daughter. Greta mails Ben's copy of The Call of the Wild to him at Columbia, and they begin a months-long courtship conducted through literature, exchanging editions with handwritten notes. The exchange stops for months. Then, after Christmas, a package arrives from Ben containing not London's novel but Moby-Dick, the subject of the book he had been struggling to write. His note reads: "Time to turn the page." On a snowy night in New York, Greta walks north toward Central Park, the place they both once walked without knowing it, heading out to find him.