Sweetland by Michael Crummey

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 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 The Shipping News, Michael Crummey—one of Canada's finest novelists—conjures up the mythical, sublime world of Sweetland's past amid a storm battered landscape haunted by local lore. As in his critically acclaimed novel Galore, Crummey masterfully weaves together past and present, creating in Sweetland a spectacular portrait of one man's battle to survive as his environment vanishes around him.

322 pages (Jan 2014)

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"Michael Crummey says Sweetland is about mortality" from The Toronto Star

Michael Crummey Brown Bag at the Canadian Literature Centre:

Title Read-alikes: Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga; Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout; Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper; Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen; Crow Lake by Mary Lawson; The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman; Juliet in August by Dianne Warren; The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni; And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman; Night of the Animals by Bill Broun; Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique; All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toes; and Road Ends by Mary Larson.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

The debut of a stunning new voice in fiction—a novel both heartbreaking and transcendent

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss.

345 pages. (July 2012)

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To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)

 

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Title Read-alikes: As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner; Latitudes of Melt by Joan Clark; The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin; We Must Be Brave by Frrances Liardet; The Lightkeeper's Wife by Karen Viggers; The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve; Ask Again, Yes by Mary Bet Keane; Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter; The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards; Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran; Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones; The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline; and The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

In her best-selling debut, Commencement, J. Courtney Sullivan explored the complicated and contradictory landscape of female friendship. Now, in her highly anticipated second novel, Sullivan takes us into even richer territory, introducing four unforgettable women who have nothing in common but the fact that, like it or not, they’re family.

For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. Their beachfront property, won on a barroom bet after the war, sits on three acres of sand and pine nestled between stretches of rocky coast, with one tree bearing the initials “A.H.” At the cottage, built by Kelleher hands, cocktail hour follows morning mass, nosy grandchildren snoop in drawers, and decades-old grudges simmer beneath the surface.

As three generations of Kelleher women descend on the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.

By turns wickedly funny and achingly sad, Maine unveils the sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing, and Catholic guilt at the center of one family, along with the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other.

388 pages (June 2010)

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To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)

 

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This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand; Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead; Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders by Julianna Baggott; Ladies of the Lake by Haywood Smith; Summer People by Elin Hiderbrand; Summer Rental Mary Kay Andrews; The Dutch House by Ann Patchett; Monogamy by Sue Miller; Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan; All Adults Here by Emma Straub; Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner; The Comeback by Ella Berman; and Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland.