"Sweetland" by Michael Crummey, a heartbreakingly beautiful novel. (NO spoilers) [View all]

I finished it yesterday evening, but I needed a day to digest it - I was so deeply touched by the story. In fact, as I got closer to the end, I kept setting the book down so I could just pause and breathe awhile - and I was totally reluctant to get to the end of the story. I did not want to leave that place, I did not want to leave that old man who was the central character. I did not want the spell to end.

I am so glad I took a chance on this book, simply based on seeing it pop up as a recommendation on GoodReads, based on my personal list of favorite books. I read the GoodReads blurb about it - although I purposely avoided looking at the page with the readers' reviews - and it sounded intriguing, so I put in a request for it on my library website. Shortly after my return from my vacation, it showed up as available to pick up.

Pretty much as soon as I started reading it, I recognized that it was something special and that I was in for an incredible journey in a place of which I had no previous knowledge.

The story centers around a small island, named Sweetland, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, and 69 year old Moses Sweetland, whose ancestors were the first settlers on the island, and for whom the island was named. It's 2012, and the Canadian government wants to resettle the Sweetland Islanders elsewhere because it no longer wants to provide services; such as the ferry that runs from the mainland to the island, the electrical power, phone service, etc.

Years before, the Canadian government had shut down the cod fishery, which had been the Islanders' main source of income. Still they hung on, managing their lives at a bare subsistance level, although the young men of the island traveled elsewhere for work and mostly didn't return. Moses lives in a tiny village on the coast of the island, which has been gradually emptying out over the years, with barely 100 souls left. The government is offering $10,000 per person to leave, plus help with settling elsewhere, job opportunities, re-training, re-housing, and such. The catch is, ALL the inhabitants must agree to the resettlement plan, or no one will get the money.

Moses Sweetland is the last holdout. He refuses to leave, in spite of all the pressure being brought to bear on him. He lives alone in the tiny house he was born in, with a portrait of his great-uncle hanging in the hallway. He has never married, has no children of his own. His grand-niece lives nearby, the daughter of his dead sister, and he spends a lot of time with her young son.

As the story moves along, we learn bits and pieces of the history of his family, himself, and the other inhabitants of the village. He was the lighthouse keeper for many years until the lighthouse was automated and he was no longer needed. Since then, he has survived on a government pension augmented by fishing, trapping rabbits, making homebrew, and stacking up firewood for the winter. We meet a number of the other villagers, who one by one eventually give in and prepare to move off the island. He is the last hold-out and the rest of the villagers alternately plead with, or anonymously threaten, him to give in.

Michael Crummey was already well-known Canadian poet when he set out to write novels. This book is not his first novel, but I haven't read anything else by him. All by I can say is that his prose is exquisite - by the first few pages of Sweetland I was hooked. I completely fell into the life of the Island, and the life of Moses Sweetland. Like Moses, I did not want to leave that place.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/michael-crummey/sweetland.htm