Back to Blog
The innocents michael crummey review5/30/2023 ![]() ![]() With only the handful of lessons and memories from their parents as guides, they just manage to survive to the first spring. The siblings have no time to mourn – they must prepare for the oncoming winter, and the life of solitude ahead of them. In the beginning of the novel, childhood is taken from them quite literally, as Evered’s hair turns shock white after the trauma of having to bury his father out at sea on his own. Michael Crummey has fashioned a survival tale out of introspective musings and spellbinding settings, meshing both brother’s and sister’s interiority with the wildness and unpredictability of the landscape around them.Īda and Evered Best are nine and eleven when they’re orphaned and left to fend for themselves in 19 th-century Newfoundland. The stakes are high: survival, year after year.īut at its core, The Innocents is a deeply emotional and moving portrait of human desires, temperaments, and existence in the face of both mundane and extreme situations. They have one boat to catch fish, one garden to grow vegetables, one set of clothes for all the seasons, and only each other’s company. ![]() On the surface, The Innocents is a novel about a brother and sister trying to live off the vast emptiness of Newfoundland coast after their parents and infant sister perish from an illness. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |