Farley stands out among his Iñupiat neighbors in the Alaska village he calls home, both white and enormous, like the hungry polar bears that wander its streets. Jovial and a little hapless, he works as an investigator for a North Slope oil company, passing the long Arctic winters drinking whiskey with the village's preacher and playing in the weekly poker game hosted by its matriarch and mayor. When his young daughter visits from thousands of miles...