The innocents : a novel / Michael Crummey.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780385685429
- ISBN: 0385685424
- Physical Description: 1 online resource
- Publisher: Toronto : Doubleday Canada, 2019.
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Genre: | Electronic books. Fiction. |
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Electronic resources
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2019 October #1
Set in Newfoundland over two centuries ago, Crummey's (Sweetland, 2015) latest follows the plight of the Best siblings, Evered and Ada, orphaned at 12 and 10 respectively after an illness claims the lives of their mother, father, and baby sister Martha. Living in isolation in their house on a northern cove, Evered and Ada put aside their grief to fend for themselves, barely considering the notion of making their way to the nearest town. Their provisions are scarce, but Evered fishes and hunts seals, while Ada maintains the house, the two of them adopting the routine their parents performed. As the years roll on, the outside world occasionally intrudes in the form of regular visits from a ship, The Hope, which brings opportunities to trade; an egotistical adventurer and his housemaid, and a company of rowdy young men. But Evered and Ada remain an impenetrable duo, even as their burgeoning sexuality starts to reshape their relationship in ways they can't quite grasp. A gorgeous portrait of remote Newfoundland of yesterday with a remarkable story of human resilience at its core. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2019 November
The InnocentsAward-winning poet and novelist Michael Crummey's work draws imaginatively from the history and landscape of his native Newfoundland. The Innocents, his fifth novel, is the riveting story of an orphaned brother and sister whose relationship is tested by hardship and isolation in 19th-century coastal Labrador.
Ada and Evered Best live in a cove in the far northern province. Their home is a stretch of rocky coast with a simple shelter, and they survive with only the most rudimentary information passed down by their parents. The siblings support themselves by catching and salting cod, which they trade for supplies twice a year, as well as by tending a small garden and trapping the occasional animal for meat. The repetition of the changing seasons defines the pair's existenceâthe breaking of the ice at the end of the long winter, the return of the cod, the annual gorging on the sweet berries that grow wild farther inland. As the years pass, their relationship changes, and when they enter puberty, their connection becomes more complicated. Though Ada and Evered once welcomed the occasional visitors who found their way to their coastline, their intimacy, developed in innocence, seems shameful in the light of even the most casual observation.Â
Crummey found the inspiration for the novel from an archival passage by a traveling clergyman who met an orphaned brother and sister living in a remote northern cove. When the clergyman approached them, the boy drove him away at gunpoint. Crummey has transformed this fragment into a richly fashioned story told with great sensitivityâone that is as credible as it is magical.
The Innocents reminds us of all the reasons we readâto understand, to imagine, to find compassion and to witness the making of art.
Copyright 2019 BookPage Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2020 January
The InnocentsAward-winning poet and novelist Michael Crummey's work draws imaginatively from the history and landscape of his native Newfoundland. The Innocents, his fifth novel, is the riveting story of an orphaned brother and sister whose relationship is tested by hardship and isolation in 19th-century coastal Labrador.
Ada and Evered Best live in a cove in the far northern province. Their home is a stretch of rocky coast with a simple shelter, and they survive with only the most rudimentary information passed down by their parents. The siblings support themselves by catching and salting cod, which they trade for supplies twice a year, as well as by tending a small garden and trapping the occasional animal for meat. The repetition of the changing seasons defines the pair's existenceâthe breaking of the ice at the end of the long winter, the return of the cod, the annual gorging on the sweet berries that grow wild farther inland. As the years pass, their relationship changes, and when they enter puberty, their connection becomes more complicated. Though Ada and Evered once welcomed the occasional visitors who found their way to their coastline, their intimacy, developed in innocence, seems shameful in the light of even the most casual observation.Â
Crummey found the inspiration for the novel from an archival passage by a traveling clergyman who met an orphaned brother and sister living in a remote northern cove. When the clergyman approached them, the boy drove him away at gunpoint. Crummey has transformed this fragment into a richly fashioned story told with great sensitivityâone that is as credible as it is magical.
The Innocents reminds us of all the reasons we readâto understand, to imagine, to find compassion and to witness the making of art.
Copyright 2020 BookPage Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2019 September #1
Orphaned and alone in 1800s Newfoundland, a young brother and sister contend with the dire hazards of their coastal surroundings and their own strange physical awakenings. Evered, 11 at the start of this epic, and Ada, two years younger, have in short order lost their parents and their newborn sister to illness. Their childhood largely denied themâEvered's hair turns white after burying his father at seaâthe siblings must overcome food shortages, bone-chilling cold, ferocious storms, temporary blindness caused by exposure to the vast ice field, sickness, and the occasional wandering bear. They live for the next visit from The Hope, a schooner that arrives every six months to trade food staples and supplies for cod. Between visits, they take great risks to find food sources and, on a wrecked ship outside the cove, warm clothes. Nestled up against each other for warmth, Evered and Ada sleep in the same bed, an arrangement that will open them to a world of mysteries they never knew existed. Watch out for the drunken shipmen from The Hope looking the teenage Ada over. Crummey, whose distinctive vision informed the Newfoundland stories i n Galore (2011) and Sweetland (2015), writes in a style consistent with the period. (Those tired of the usual phrases for lovemaking might try "They two joined giblets.") But the book's central imageâthe traumatizing sight of naked dead bodies in the hold of a wrecked shipâshocks in a contemporary way. And Crummey's refusal to go where you might expectâthe offbeat humor can catch you by surpriseâprovides page-turning pleasures. You can't wait to see what happens next. An unusual, gripping period novel from a much-honored Canadian writer. Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2019 September
In this fifth novel from Giller Prize short-listed Crummey, Evered and Ada live in a shack with their parents in an isolated cove somewhere along the coast of Newfoundland. When their parents die, the children are left to fend for themselves, and with barely a notion of the outside world, they struggle tenaciously to rise above the deprivation suddenly thrust upon them. The solitude binds them together, but it quickly becomes clear that some sort of intervention is needed for them to carry on. Initially, that intervention comes in the form of a ship called
Copyright 2019 Library Journal.The Hope that has always stopped twice yearly in the cove to exchange supplies for dried fish the family has prepared. As the years pass, the children's isolation and cramped quarters present an entirely different set of challenges.VERDICT Similar to Crummey'sSweetland as it delves into the minutiae of life on a northerly island, this novel can be tough going at times, but fans of narrative travel writing will appreciate Crummey's descriptive flourishes. The relentless bleakness is alleviated by the cinematic depiction of the surrounding wilderness, with Crummey's prose recalling that of Jim Crace in its strange, archaic terminology and sense of timelessness, and the conclusion is strangely moving. [See Prepub Alert, 5/5/19.]âStephen Schmidt, Greenwich Lib., CT - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2019 September #4
In his fifth novel, Crummey (
Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly.Sweetland ) imparts another heartfelt, extraordinary perspective on survival in the rugged isolation of his homeland of Newfoundland, this time from two pre-adolescent, newly orphaned siblings, after illness fells their infant sister and parents. Evered and Ada Best endure inconceivably severe weather conditions; their 19th-century livelihoods are at the mercy of natureâwill they harvest enough fish to trade for necessary winter provisions? Besides the biannual visits of the ship, ironically namedThe Hope and run by an unscrupulous money-man, the brother and sister only have each other for companionship. Happenstance brings a captain and his cook to their coveâjust in time to save a feverish Ada from near death; later a ship full of sailors looking to replace their mainmast arrives, temporarily enlivening their existence. Against the sensitive portrayal of how two naïfs handle their budding sexuality, these fortuitous encounters underscore Evered's and Ada's innocence about life and the larger world. Crummey delivers profound insight into how individuals grapple with the forces of nature, not only in the unpredictable environment, but in the mystifying interior of their temperaments, drives, and character. This story of how two guileless youngsters navigate life will have a deep emotional impact on its readers.(Nov.)