Sweetland

The scarcely populated town of Sweetland rests on the shore of a remote Canadian island. Its slow decline finally reaches a head when the mainland government offers each islander a generous resettlement package — the sole stipulation being that everyone must leave. Fierce and enigmatic Moses Sweetland, whose ancestors founded the village, is the only one to refuse. As he watches his neighbors abandon the island, he recalls the town's rugged history and its eccentric cast of characters. Evoking , Michael Crummey — one of Canada's finest novelists — conjures up the mythical, sublime world of Sweetland's past amid a stormbattered landscape haunted by local lore. As in his critically acclaimed novel Galore, Crummey masterfully weaves together past and present, creating in a spectacular portrait of one man's battle to survive as his environment vanishes around him.

"Michael Crummey's 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, author of The Lobster Kings

"Wry, touching, and filled with insights into the modern human condition, Michael Crummey's spare and sturdy prose in 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, author of Woodsburner

"An evocative portrait of a disappearing way of life, 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, author of Everything I Never Told You

"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, 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

"The elimination of an entire community, and what it represents, is deeply felt. Through its crusty protagonist, Crummey's shrewd, absorbing novel tells us how rich a life can be, even when experienced in the narrowest of physical confines." Kirkus Reviews, Starred review

Praise forGalore: A glittering, fabulist tale. Los Angeles Times"

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

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.