In 1785, two frigates departed the port of Brest in France and embarked on a global scientific and commercial exploration. The Lapérouse Expedition, as it came to be known, crossed the Atlantic and rounded Cape Horn, then traversed the Pacific, exploring remote areas of Alaska, the Russian Far East and Australia, as well as visiting established ports at Monterey, Macao and Petropavlovsk, before disappearing in the South Pacific. The expedition's doomed attempt to circumnavigate the world and bring wealth and glory to France is the subject of Davis author Naomi Williams’ debut novel, Landfalls. Turning painstaking research into flesh and blood characters, the novel also broadens the scope of traditional nautical fiction through its use of multiple narrators and points of view. In this class, Williams will describe her own 10-year journey to bring Landfalls into being.
