What astounded me was their resilience and strength in adverse conditions, how they coped with the freezing temperatures and never gave up. They are orphaned when only about twelve and ten and only have their example of their parents to follow, how to catch fish, salt it, chop wood, dry it and barter for their provisions. In Evered and Ada he has creates an Adam and Eve like scenario, although Newfoundland is no Garden of Eden, it is more like Hell. The Innocents is beautifully written and Michael Crummey’s skill as a writer is evident in that this book only has two main characters and is based in one location and can hold the readers attention.
As they fight for survival, their closeness is compromised especially as they face their personal changes, can they pull together and survive the challenges placed before them. In a desolate cove they are at the mercy of nature and the seasons and must salt fish to exchange for provisions twice a year when The Hope arrives at the cove. The Innocents is set in nineteenth century Newfoundland and the innocents of the title are Evedred and Ada, oprphaned and left to fend for themselves.
But as seasons pass and they wade deeper into the mystery of their own natures, even that loyalty will be tested. Muddling though the severe round of the seasons, through years of meagre catches and storms and ravaging illness, it is their fierce loyalty to each other that motivates and sustains them.
Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family’s boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. 2020)Ī brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland’s northern coastline.
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