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 neighbours relent, he recalls the town's rugged history and its eccentric cast of characters. Crummey masterfully weaves together past and present, creating a spectacular portrait of one man's battle to survive as his world vanishes around him. source
Places
- AboutFogo Island↗
Pendergast (2016, peer-reviewed) explicitly identifies the novel's fictional Sweetland and Little Sweetland as modeled on Fogo Island and Little Fogo Island. Crummey's Hazlitt interview ties the plot to his Adventure Canada work in resettlement-resistant outports — the cultural narrative most strongly associated with Fogo Island.
Pendergast, 'A Man and His Island: The Island Mirror in Michael Crummey's Sweetland,' Island Studies Journal (2016); cross-referenced with Anna Fitzpatrick, 'In the Company of the Dead — an Interview with Michael Crummey,' Hazlitt (2014) — source
