Member Review
Review by
Ruth M, Reviewer
With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an advance review copy.
Set on a in 1938, this is an assured debut that deftly captures a world and a way of life that are about to change for ever.
18-year-old Manod is the daughter of a lobster fisherman on a rapidly depopulating remote island off the coast of Wales. The year is 1938; many of the few houses on the island are empty and falling into disrepair following the losses of the first World War and the younger generation who are increasingly seeking an easier life on the mainland. Manod's mother is dead so she looks after her younger sister and their father in their tiny cottage. The living is meagre and hard.
At the start of the novel, a whale is washed up on shore; in spite of attempts to float it into the sea, the carcass returns and remains on the beach, slowly decomposing. At around the same time, two young anthropologists arrive to carry out an ethnographic project to document the way of life on the island before it is too late, while in the background the rumblings of the impending war become harder to ignore, even in such a remote place.
Manod is relatively well educated, rare amongst the islanders in that she has been taught to speak English fluently by the visiting nuns who have charge of educating the ten or so children on the island. As such she is employed by the anthropologists to mediate and translate between them and the island inhabitants. At the outset she sees in them her hope of leaving for the mainland and a better life, but like the whale, they will turn out to be rotten at the core and she will need to make her own future happen.
This short novel ends with an author's note explaining that it was inspired by the stories of islands like St Kilda and the Arran islands which have suffered population decline over the course of the 20th century. Its sparse prose beautifully captures the dying throes of a way of life that is about to be swallowed up by progress and changed by historical events. Manod's character is beautifully portrayed - barely out of childhood, having led a sheltered, primitive life, a woman of few words, we make the same mistake as the anthropologists do if we think that she is therefore simple or ripe for exploitation. The emergence of her strength of character is flawlessly achieved, and flawlessly offset against the bigger picture of her little world, which she grows to see the value of even as she recognises how doomed it is. This is a gem of a book - read it.
Set on a in 1938, this is an assured debut that deftly captures a world and a way of life that are about to change for ever.
18-year-old Manod is the daughter of a lobster fisherman on a rapidly depopulating remote island off the coast of Wales. The year is 1938; many of the few houses on the island are empty and falling into disrepair following the losses of the first World War and the younger generation who are increasingly seeking an easier life on the mainland. Manod's mother is dead so she looks after her younger sister and their father in their tiny cottage. The living is meagre and hard.
At the start of the novel, a whale is washed up on shore; in spite of attempts to float it into the sea, the carcass returns and remains on the beach, slowly decomposing. At around the same time, two young anthropologists arrive to carry out an ethnographic project to document the way of life on the island before it is too late, while in the background the rumblings of the impending war become harder to ignore, even in such a remote place.
Manod is relatively well educated, rare amongst the islanders in that she has been taught to speak English fluently by the visiting nuns who have charge of educating the ten or so children on the island. As such she is employed by the anthropologists to mediate and translate between them and the island inhabitants. At the outset she sees in them her hope of leaving for the mainland and a better life, but like the whale, they will turn out to be rotten at the core and she will need to make her own future happen.
This short novel ends with an author's note explaining that it was inspired by the stories of islands like St Kilda and the Arran islands which have suffered population decline over the course of the 20th century. Its sparse prose beautifully captures the dying throes of a way of life that is about to be swallowed up by progress and changed by historical events. Manod's character is beautifully portrayed - barely out of childhood, having led a sheltered, primitive life, a woman of few words, we make the same mistake as the anthropologists do if we think that she is therefore simple or ripe for exploitation. The emergence of her strength of character is flawlessly achieved, and flawlessly offset against the bigger picture of her little world, which she grows to see the value of even as she recognises how doomed it is. This is a gem of a book - read it.
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