The Book: Young John-Calum McLeod, known to everyone as Cal, has returned to the Western Isles of Scotland after finishing an art school degree that did not lead to gainful employment. Waiting for him at his home on the island of Harris is the small croft and sheep farm that has been in Cal's mother's family for years although his mother divorced his father and moved out long ago. Still living in the croft is Cal's ultra-conservative father, John McLeod, and Cal's maternal grandmother Ella. In this small community where people still speak Gaelic and English, the people adhere to a strict Calvinist tradition and Cal's father, a lay preacher at the local church, has definite ideas about proper behavior. He finds Cal's long, dyed hair to be sinful but what he does not know is that Cal is gay. It is a lonely life on the island; the nearest neighbors are two bachelor brothers who take care of their demented father. The next nearest neighbors have a daughter that everyone has always assumed Cal will marry. Cal longs for a connection he cannot have as he keeps his sexual identity a secret. But his father and his grandmother have their secrets too.
The Author: Douglas Stuart
Genre: Literary Fiction
Length: 787 pages on e-reader (ipod mini)
One good thing: This man can write. I mean, really write. See below.
One not-so-great thing: There isn't much in this novel that is not great; if I had to pick one thing it would probably be the length. Or maybe that Oprah picked this novel for her book club which will scare off a lot of people because her picks tend to be viewed as depressing. I did not find this depressing.
Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways": Characters, Story, Setting, Writing
Readers who will enjoy this novel: Readers who value characters above all else; Readers looking for a sense of place that makes them want to visit; Readers who value excellent writing; Readers who like a story that keeps them wondering how everything will work out. If you are a reader who demands a page turner, this probably isn't for you; this is a novel with a slow build.
Stuart creates his characters the way a painter creates a painting, slowly and stroke by stroke. As the novel progresses, the broad, black and white outlines of the characters (seen mostly, in the beginning, from Cal's perspective) slowly develop into three dimensional, colorful human beings. There is not much narrative "telling" about the characters, the reader must discover them through their thoughts and actions which are often (as in real life) contradictory. Although this is not a plot driven mystery story, the main characters are all keeping secrets from each other and the reader is constantly wondering what those secrets are and whether the secrets will ever be revealed by the characters to each other.
The heart of the community is the very conservative Calvinist Presbyterian church, in which those who are "saved" sit in the front of the church and the remainder sit in the rear, and those who are too sinful may be cast out. This adds tension to the novel as the secrets (as with most secrets) tend to be of the type that would be seen as sinful by the church and the congregation. John McLeod, Cal's father, is a lay preacher at the church and wants his son to repent his "sinful" ways, cut his hair and turn into a church-going family man. This is not the future Cal pictures for himself but he can't bring himself to directly tell his father. But Cal does not know that his father is constantly praying for forgiveness even as he regularly chooses what the church would see as sin.
The island of Harris is almost a character of the novel in itself. Stuart evokes its harsh landscape and life on a sheep farm, as well as the job of weaving the "Harris Tweed" woolens that are more profitable than the sheep. It is not a place I would want to live but by the end of the novel I wanted to visit just to see it. At the same time, the story doesn't shrink from the fact that tourism and holiday home buyers are changing the island.
Stuart won the Booker Prize in 2020 for his novel Shuggie Bain, which I never read as the story didn't appeal to me. (I also never read his second novel, Young Mungo.) So it was with trepidation that I picked up this novel. But what a joy it was to read his prose. Without a doubt, this is the best piece of literary fiction that I have read yet this year.
It would have been so easy for Stuart to make John McLeod the villain of the novel and, indeed, there are moments when his cruelty seems overwhelming. But while he is a complicated, deeply flawed man, there is no doubt that he loves his son. It is the contradictions that make him so interesting. All of the characters have their flaws but Stuart is not a writer who judges, he simply presents. And while the novel is specific as to the characters, it is universal in its depiction of the human desire to "belong" which exists in juxtaposition with the need to be oneself and discover one's own identity.
