Sweetland

by Michael Crummey

Overview

Winner of the CBC Bookie Award for Fiction
Winner of the Newfoundland & Labrador Book Award
Finalist for the the BMO Winterset Award
Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award
Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award
An Audie Awards Finalist

The epic tale of an endangered Newfoundland community and the struggles of one man determined to resist its extinction.

The scarcely populated town of Sweetland clings to the shore of a remote Canadian island. Its slow decline has finally reached a head, with the mainland government offering each islander a generous resettlement package— the only stipulation being that everyone must leave. Fierce and enigmatic Moses Sweetland, whose ancestors founded the island, is determined to refuse. As one by one his neighbors relent, he recalls the town’s rugged history and its eccentric cast of characters. For fans of The Shipping News, Michael Crummey’s prose conjures up the mythical, sublime world of Sweetland’s past amid a storm-battered landscape haunted by local lore. In a spare style that belies “huge emotional depth and heart” (Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You), Crummey masterfully weaves together the past and present, creating in Sweetland a spectacular portrait of one man’s battle to survive as his world vanishes around him.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871407917
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	12/29/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	976,914
File size:	366 KB

About the Author

Michael Crummey is a poet and storyteller and the author of several critically acclaimed novels. His most recent book, Galore, won the Commonwealth Prize for Canada. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Editorial Reviews

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…In the end, though, as Crummey's elegant prose and storytelling prowess make abundantly clear, no man is an island.

The New York Times Book Review - William D. Cohan

"Impetuous and imperious, Moses Sweetland is an extraordinary, beautifully realized character, and the supporting cast—including Queenie Coffin, a chain-smoking romance-novel addict who hasn’t left her house in four decades; and the feral Priddle brothers, “Irish twins” born 10 months apart—are scarcely less so. But Sweetland, Crummey’s finest novel yet, reaches its mythic and mesmerizing heights only after the others depart, leaving Moses—a Newfoundland Robinson Crusoe who even encounters a Friday-like dog—alone on his eponymous island, bracing for a bitter winter both seasonal and personal."

Macleans

"An evocative portrait of a disappearing way of life, Sweetland is also a powerful rumination on what’s lost in letting go of the past—and the sometimes-unbearable cost of trying to hold onto it. Michael Crummey’s deceptively spare language perfectly matches the tiny island community at the novel’s center: beneath the quiet surface, there’s huge emotional depth and heart."

Celeste Ng

"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. …[A]s Crummey’s elegant prose and storytelling prowess make abundantly clear, no man is an island."

William D. Cohan

"When the government orders that the population of Sweetland, an isolated and insular town on a remote Canadian island, must relocate, Moses Sweetland, whose ancestors settled the town, refuses. The novel unfolds as he remembers the island’s folklore and his family’s history, while watching his neighbors leave their homes. Beautifully capturing the wild, rugged landscape, Crummey has written a novel about love for the land one is from."

VanityFair.com - Nicole Jones

"The latest novel by the Canadian Michael Crummey tells a slow-burning, ultimately moving story about a man and a town, both called Sweetland."

New York Times - John Williams

"Wry, touching, and filled with insights into the modern human condition, Michael Crummey’s spare and sturdy prose in Sweetland delivers a kaleidoscopic portrayal of a quirky island community forced to abandon their vanishing way of life. Ignoring government bribes and threats from his neighbors, the obstinate waterman Moses Sweetland defiantly chooses the isolation of his family home off the Newfoundland coast to become a present-day Robinson Crusoe: resourceful, irascible, wily, and wholly unforgettable."

John Pipkin

"Michael Crummey's Sweetland is a beautiful prayer for a dying island and an elegy for the titular character, who is both haunted and haunting, besieged by ghosts and yet trying to stop himself from becoming one."

Alexi Zentner

Narrator John Lee’s deep voice and rhythmic intonation are perfect for this beautiful novel, set amid the harsh landscape of a town with no future, a victim of the two-decade ban on cod fishing off eastern Canada. Moses Sweetland is a 70-year-old crusty inhabitant of the tiny Newfoundland settlement of Sweetland—named for his ancestors. The government has decided to move everyone to the mainland, but Sweetland refuses to go for reasons that are revealed throughout the audiobook. Lee renders Sweetland’s laconic and stubborn nature as well as his special relationship with his autistic great-nephew, Jesse. Lee’s slightly toneless performance of Jesse captures the boy’s deep well of affection but lack of emotional maturity. SWEETLAND is a spectacular meld of story and performance. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2016 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2015 - AudioFile