CLEAR

A minister is sent to evict the last inhabitant of an isolated island in the North Sea.

It’s 1843, and two major upheavals are roiling Scotland. First, the barbaric Clearances, in which landowners replace their “impoverished, unreliable tenants” with profitable occupants like sheep, have finally made their way to Scotland’s austere northern islands. Second, one-third of Scotland’s Presbyterian ministers have revolted against landowner-controlled church appointments—and consequently deprived themselves of any income. Reverend John Ferguson is one of these suddenly impoverished ministers, which is why he agrees to voyage 400 miles into the North Sea to evict a barren island’s sole remaining tenant. Armed with a pistol and a calotype image of his wife, Mary, John is dropped off and told that the boat will return in a month. He’s barely there a day, however, when he falls off a cliff and is rescued by Ivar, the lonely man he’s there to remove. The two men do not share a language, but while Ivar tends John’s wounds and teaches him words like leura (“a period of short, unreliable quiet between storms”), he finds himself increasingly attracted to John…who is too ashamed to admit that he’s come to kick Ivar out of his home. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Mary learns something about this particular clearance that causes her to set off in search of her husband. Will John come to reciprocate Ivar’s more-than-filial feelings? Will Ivar leave peacefully? Will John’s hidden pistol bring the leura to a harsh and sudden end? With her characteristically buoyant prose and brisk sense of plotting, Davies crafts a humane tale about individuals struggling to maintain dignity beneath competing systems of disenfranchisement. But while a lesser author might allow their characters to be terminally lashed by these historical travesties, Davies infuses John, Mary, and Ivar with refreshingly fantastical levels of creativity and grace, which helps them find a startling new way to avert disaster.

A deft and graceful yarn about language, love, and rebellion against the inhumane forces of history.