Wild at heart
On a remote island where mystery and murmurings abound, an artist is asked to work for a reclusive commune of women.
Irish author and critic Sinéad Gleeson’s 2019 collection of essays, Constellations, was an unflinching and generous look at trauma, illness, pain, faith, pregnancy and motherhood, with thunderbolt flashes of art criticism and political commentary.
Her debut novel, Hagstone, covers some of the same ground, being an intensely atmospheric look at art, solitude, community, human nature, the mysteries of faith and the magic of the natural world.
Living on an unforgivingly wild and remote island off Ireland’s rugged west coast, Nell is an artist whose visual works – sand sculptures, statues – and sonic installations are inspired by the landscape around her.
The island is a place with “quiet roads full of blame” where everyone in the small community knows each blade of grass and stone.
But the island’s main mystery is a commune of women known as the Inions, who have withdrawn from society for an egalitarian life of simplicity and peace high on the cliffs in Rathglas, an old convent.
When Nell receives a letter from the Inions commissioning her to create an artwork to celebrate their 30th anniversary and to show what they have strived to create as a modern self-sufficient community, she becomes the first outsider invited to Rathglas. Gossip from the mainland suggests it’s a cult.
There are murmurings about Nell, too. That her interest in gardening, making healing tinctures and cooking elaborate meals with interesting ingredients instead of bland bangers and mash means she’s a witch.
When Nell becomes romantically involved with mainlander Cleary, he’s mindful of what the villagers say about her but feels a magnetic pull, impressed that Nell has a strong sense of self and dedication to her art.
The island is plagued by a mysterious
phenomenon known as “the sound”. It comes on with no warning or pattern, not everyone can hear it, and climatologists and paranormal types alike have been unable to explain it. But it triggers unexplained happenings. It has driven some people mad.
Rathglas begins to close in on Nell. It becomes apparent that even this utopian enclave isn’t immune to corruption and factions. If the Inions don’t stick together, the structure will fall apart.
There’s a sense of Nell being torn between keeping her distance to maintain a clear-sighted eye for her work and intervening.
Gleeson is an allusive writer with a lushly evocative style similar to Sarah Moss. An expert world-builder, finely tuned into the natural world, she describes “a roux of metallic frost smeared on the grass”, the “blue of mussel shells, butterflied and spent”, a ladder “measled with rust”, the “oily stink” of a compost heap.
The island’s flora and fauna come to life, its seaweed foremost: pepper dulse is “known as the truffle of the sea” and Nell forages for tooth wrack for soothing baths. Ancient hedgerows, bloody cranesbill, clover, clematis and honeysuckle bloom on the harsh landscape.
Hagstone is charged with an eeriness, and the romance of wild landscapes and art. There are details of Nell’s artworks throughout the novel and at the end, Gleeson has included a note on the real artists whose works have influenced Nell from Marina Abramović to Louise Bourgeois, which further enriches the already intoxicating reading experience. ▮
The island is plagued by a mysterious phenomenon known as ‘the sound’. It has driven some people mad.
THE APPRENTICE WITNESSER by Bren MacDibble
W(A&U, $19.99)
estern Australia-resident Kiwi Bren MacDibble has impressive credentials – she has won our junior fiction award twice (for How to Bee and The Dog Runner) and, as Cally Black, taken the YA award for In the Dark Spaces. Now she continues her climate-crisis adventure novels with a tale featuring endearing, resilient characters in a postpandemic, post-industrial setting that addresses perhaps our most pressing issue du jour: what is truth? Basti, an apprentice Witnesser of Miracles, takes snapshots of “little moments” on an oldschool camera to authenticate incidents for her guardian, the storyteller Lodyma. Hope-full.
NINE GIRLS by Stacy Gregg (Penguin, $22)
From a writer much loved for her horse stories
– her standalone titles have made the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults finals eight times and scooped the coveted Children’s Choice three times in a row – comes a very different tale. No horses, for starters. Instead, at a turbulent time in our recent history, a peeved teen displaced from a posh Auckland suburb returns to her mother’s home town of Ngāruawāhia, divided by race and a river. There’s a mystery concerning buried treasure dating back to the land wars, tapu and – yes – a talking tuna (eel). The taniwha, with an impeccable tribal pedigree, is a device for imparting historical information, some of which I suspect young readers might skip. And don’t go looking for nine characters – the title is finally explained in an author’s note.
DEEP IS THE FEN by Lili Wilkinson (A&U, $27.99)
Australian writer Lili Wilkinson is nothing if not versatile. Her doomsday prepper novel, After the Lights Go Out, headed our 2018 50 Best list. With a huge online following, she offers a second dark fantasy – many, like my 15-yearold granddaughter Olive, enjoyed the previous Hunger of Thorns, not just for its stunning cover. Wilkinson, daughter of Australian historical
fiction writer Carole Wilkinson, is great on plot, and I can take the mix of magic, secret societies (toads, anyone?) and witches, especially when it’s grounded in a convincing small town friendship circle of senior teens, flawed and all. But I’d have to put this right at the top of YA for its disturbing re-education camp passages. Like central character Merry, I felt lucky to get out of it alive.
OUTLAW GIRLS by Emily Gale & Nova Weetman (Text, $21)
A very Aussie story this, from a duo whose previous time-slip collab, Elsewhere Girls, was shortlisted for awards across the Tasman. This one features Ned Kelly’s last days from the point of view of his sister, Kate (a real person), and – a century on, looking back with full knowledge
– city girl Ruby. Both are competent horsewomen, which allows them to meet in the bush clearing that becomes their portal. The other link in this “fictitious story including real events” is theft: Ruby is one of four kids who went to primary school together who are into shoplifting from the local supermarket but take on a tractor theft for a dare. The Kellys, of course, are stealing to stay alive, even before they hold up a bank.
SMOKE & MIRRORS by Barry Jonsberg (A&U, $22.99)
Nothing is what it seems in this story of sassy teen Grace (aka Amazing Grace, amateur magician) and her cranky Gran, for whom she becomes caregiver. In many ways, the two are like mirror images – both rejecting help, refusing to face reality and making some very wrong judgments along the way. Sleight of hand, sarcasm, a brother who comes and goes … it’s a highly enjoyable and satisfying read. ▮