The children’s chief concern is food supply, which depletes to dangerous levels through the cold months. Such naivete in their harrowing circumstances leads to plenty of conflict, but through Crummey’s well-wrought prose and poetic tendencies, nothing feels contrived. The world is unimaginably wide outside the siblings’ cove, but by the time the rest of their family dies, they’ve already internalized their most valuable survival lesson: piece together whatever you can from whatever washes ashore. When Mary Oram finally got to her feet she tucked the string into a pocket at the front of Sarah Best’s dress.” She said, ‘May earth bear on you with all its might and main.’ And she carried on repeating that line often enough that the words started to lose their meaning in Ada’s ears.

“ knotted the string three times and put her hand over the top of it on Sarah Best’s stomach. Imagine The Blue Lagoon, but too cold for sexy “primitive” costumes.Įven before their parents die, the siblings have their antenna up for signals from the outside world, especially when the eccentric Mary Oram shows up to deliver their sister Martha, who dies as an infant: Crummey doesn’t specify the era, but the presence of merchant ships and archaic language suggests the 19 th century. Orphaned in remote Newfoundland, they must figure out their survival with little guidance in a harsh, wintry landscape. Two children, the older boy Evered Best and his younger sister Ada, lose their parents. The Innocents is Crummey’s fifth novel–Scotiabank nominated his first, River Thieves, for Canada’s Giller Prize, and he’s also published several books of poetry.

With The Innocents, author Michael Crummey goes against modern storytelling instincts to ratchet up stimulus, choosing instead to render a tale so finely hewn you realize what we give up when we replace drama with sound and fury.

The innocents michael crummey