I like McConaghy’s modern style amid modern writers who try this same method, but don’t quite pull it off as she does. It’s bare. A stark naked collection of thoughts and dialogue streamed onto the page in short sentences, each word intentional, selected to deliver full impact, rife with darkness and ecological emotion and raging realities. And she unfolds these layered stories in this way, hitting us over the head with their meaning, the history they embody, pushing us down into the freezing waters to see what we’ll do about it… 

 

In a dying world, a little boy’s hope for a future collides with the adult evils he’s naive to, and the consequences are disastrous for many of these suspicious people—some who have become like family to him. He and his workaholic father think there might still be a chance to save the world, to save the earth and its inhabitants, even if they don't necessarily want to live with many of them. The woman, a suspicious newcomer, mysterious in her strange appearance among them, joins in their passion and belief, and it seems life and hope might be possible. But they're all keeping secrets from one another here, and on an island of 9 people (4 dead, 1 missing), it's a hard job to keep all these things under wraps for very long.

A storm is coming (every day), and in it, there will be a reckoning...

 

My favourite happy moment in the book (I could count these on 2 fingers), is when one of my favourite men on the planet gets a mention: David Attenborough. I love that man, his work, his passion. 

 

This wee novel is at once a warning, a prophetic narrative, and when we put the book down and look around us at another coming summer and early fires already raging across countries, warmer temps and melting polar caps, and we think of the next generation… well, it’s not so difficult to believe…