Peter Boyle's Reviews > The Colony

It's 1979 and a small island off the coast of Ireland hosts two distinctive guests. First there is Mr Lloyd, an English artist who has come to paint the cliffs. He is fussy and demanding, immediately setting noses out of joint. But he does strike up a kind of friendship with 15-year-old James Gillan, reluctantly taking him on as an apprentice. The other notable visitor is Jean-Pierre Masson, a Frenchman who has spent the last few summers on the island studying the Irish language, which is slowly dying out. The two men clash - Lloyd can't concentrate on his work with all the hubbub Masson is making, while Masson is annoyed by the artist speaking English, a malign influence on the locals. Also, they both have eyes on James's mother Mairéad, a beautiful widow. Interspersed with all of this activity are reports of murders in Northern Ireland, with the Troubles at its height.

There is so much going on in this thoughtfully written novel. Magee deftly examines common themes like grief and jealousy, while carefully considering other subjects like the struggles of living on an isolated, rocky outpost, or a culture becoming extinct. Even the pressure a person can feel to follow in the family way of life is explored in the expectation that James will become a fisherman, like his father, who died at sea. I initially wondered what the bulletins from Northern Ireland had to do with it all but I believe they are employed to contrast with the island's more peaceful existence. We eventually learn that they are being heard on the radio in the Gillan house - the rising violence they describe becomes harder to ignore and it all lends itself to the notion that the island is being shaped by external influences, like it or not. The one aspect of the book that I didn't find all that interesting was Masson's childhood and his struggle with French/Algerian identity. But all in all, this is a captivating, expertly told story with many layers to uncover.