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Summary
Summary
The epic tale of an endangered Newfoundland community and the struggles of one man determined to resist its extinction. The scarcely populated town on Sweetland rests on the shore of a remote Canadian island. Its slow decline finally reaches a head when the mainland government offers each islander a generous resettlement package-the sole stipulation being that everyone must leave. Fierce and enigmatic Moses Sweetland, whose inspectors founded the village, is the only one to refuse. As he watches his neighbors abandon the island, he recalls the town's rugged history and it eccentric cast of characters. Evoking The Shipping News, Michael Crummey-one of Canada's finest novelists-conjures up the mythical, sublime world of Sweetland's past amid a stormbattered landscape haunted by local lore. As in his critically acclaimed novel Galore, Crummey masterfully weaves together past and present, creating in Sweetland a spectacular portrait of one man's battle to survive as his environment vanishes around him.
Author Notes
Michael Crummey was born in Buchans, Newfoundland, Canada on November 18, 1965. He received a BA in English from Memorial University in 1987. He pursued graduate work at Queen's University, but dropped out of the PhD program in 1989.
In 1986, he entered and won the Gregory J. Power Poetry Contest at Memorial University. He was first published in the St. John's-based literary mag TickleAce. In 1994, he won the inaugural Bronwen Wallace Award for Poetry. His first book of poetry, Arguments with Gravity, was published in 1996 and won the Writer's Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Poetry. His works include Hard Light, Emergency Roadside Assistance, and Flesh and Blood.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sweetland is both a place-a small island off Newfoundland-and a person-Moses Sweetland-and both have seen better times. The provincial government is offering resettlement money to Sweetland residents, but only if everyone agrees to leave. Moses Sweetland is 69 years old and has been disfigured by an industrial accident. When the story opens, he is the only person-aside from the man considered the island idiot-who opposes the government's proposition. He's under plenty of pressure to accept, but the island named for his ancestors, where he takes his great-nephew rabbit hunting and hands down family legends, is the only place Moses can imagine living. Crummey, whose last book, Galore, won the Commonwealth Prize, does both man and place justice: Moses is a memorably strong-willed character, whose manner of thinking and speaking are dying out. The novel also conveys the way that a sense of place is the product of relationships-among the living, with the dead, and, in Moses's case, arising from an intimate connections to land and sea. At the end of the story, Moses remains alone on the island, his supplies dwindling, beset by injury, cold, and memories-the question isn't what will happen, but how. Having nearly trapped himself in a narrative corner, Crummey writes himself out of it, concluding the book in a way that recalls Aristotle's maxim from the Poetics: the best endings find a way to be both surprising and inevitable. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Curmudgeonly but likable Moses Sweetland is holding out against the government's offer to relocate him from the eponymous Canadian maritime island that his family once settled. His best friend is his niece's challenged son, Jesse. Together they roam, hunting and fishing the nearby lands in which they remain deeply rooted. Tragedy ensues, and Sweetland maintains his resistance intransigently, then surreptitiously, ultimately quite alone. This is a familiar story, but it is told precisely and heartwarmingly, realistically and without sentimentality. Its small cast of accompanying characters is well and wittily delineated, and Crummey's characteristic switching between past and present is done craftily. Crummey's prior novels have been well received (Galore, among others), but with this simple and profound story, he may become a newfound author for readers of Jon Hassler, Kent Haruf, and other masters of small-town fiction.--Levine, Mark Copyright 2014 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Part "Independent People" (for the fierce portrait of its main character's unwavering determination) and part "Absalom, Absalom!" (for the unusual set of characters surrounding him), Crummey's latest novel tells the absorbing story of Moses Sweetland's singular battle to hold on to his home on a tiny island off the coast of Newfoundland. From the outset, Crummey makes us understand that the odds are heavily stacked against his hero. Overwhelmingly, Sweetland's neighbors - a ragtag bunch of fishermen, boozers and ne'er-do-wells - have thrown in their lot with a government plan to relocate everyone away from the island (also named Sweetland, after his ancestors, who founded it) and pay them more money than they've ever seen to do so. The only catch is that everyone must succumb or the payoff won't happen. Hence the tension Crummey has rested literally at Sweetland's doorstep. Fortunately for the reader, Moses Sweetland has no intention of going anywhere. His determination becomes "more firmly anchored as the holdouts dwindled, as if to offset the loss in numbers with a blind certainty. He found himself enjoying it almost, to be the one knot they couldn't untangle. Holding on like grim death and halfways invigorated by the effort." One after another, this former lighthouse keeper faces down his eccentric neighbors and family members, as well as the government bureaucrats - and his own deeply rooted demons. It's an affecting battle, one that leaves him on his own after the power is cut and the ferry service ended. The resilient Sweetland has planned well for his self-sufficiency. He endures brutal storms, withering hunger, foolish expeditions and mind-bending loneliness. In the end, though, as Crummey's elegant prose and storytelling prowess make abundantly clear, no man is an island.
Kirkus Review
On the small fictional island of Sweetland, just south of Newfoundland, a former lighthouse keeper becomes the last man standing when he refuses to accept a government resettlement packagemuch to everyone's exasperation.Never married and with hardly any living kin, Moses Sweetland has spent most of his 69 years on the island to which his ancestors gave their name. Since technology eliminated his lighthouse keeper job, he has done a little bit of everything, like burying bodies and pulling a baby calf from a neighbor's mistreated cow. He's a sarcastic cuss, but his attachmentsespecially to his niece's autistic son, who is as adamant about staying on Sweetland as Mosesare strong. In resisting the government's $100,000 cash offer, which needs to be accepted by all the occupants to go through, Moses exposes himself to a series of threats, some of them grisly. But with all the memories the island has for him, and all the secrets there still waiting to be uncovered, he plans on being there until he dies. Canadian author Crummey employs a very different style here than he did with his fanciful, widely admired 2011 novel, Galore. Like Moses, Sweetland moves in fits and starts, capturing the present in patient detail and flashing back to dwell on milestone moments in his life. Unlike most novels steeped in rural nostalgia, it gets a kick out of contemporary life: Moses plays Internet poker; his niece is hooked on Mad Men. But the elimination of an entire community, and what it represents, is deeply felt. Through its crusty protagonist, Crummey's shrewd, absorbing novel tells us how rich a life can be, even when experienced in the narrowest of physical confines. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Crummey (Galore) here creates a compelling and epic story of one man's quest to stay on his beloved island off the Newfoundland coast after a government buyout. Moses Sweetland refuses to leave the island his ancestors founded, it holds too many memories and he feels driven to stay for reasons he can't quite articulate. As the island's residents leave, he finds himself reminiscing on his and the town's histories. From the eclectic residents to old traditions, Sweetland finds solace in looking back on the island's past. Soon he's utterly alone, and all he has to keep him sane are his thoughts. The story alternates among the present story, Sweetland's youth, and various other memorable moments in his lifetime. Narrated beautifully by John Lee, who does an impressive job creating distinct voices for all the characters, most notably Moses Sweetland. Verdict Fans of literary fiction and rugged island life will enjoy this astonishing tale of an old man determined not to let go of the past.-Erin Cataldi, Johnson Cty. P.L., Franklin, IN © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
