FEW AND FAR BETWEEN

Carson imagines what might have happened if Terence O’Neill, prime minister of Northern Ireland in the 1960s, had been allowed to move forward with his scheme to create a new county by emptying the country’s largest lake.

Siblings Marion and Robert-John Connolly live on an island in the fictional Neagh Archipelago, nicknamed the Ark, a smattering of islands in Lough Neagh exposed by the partial draining of the lake—even in this alternate history, the plan is botched. They are the children of the late RJ Connolly, a renowned anthropologist who moved his family to the Ark in 1972 so he could study the “modern ‘utopia’” that had sprung up there. Shielded from the violence of the Troubles, this community came to house people persecuted on the Mainland, including Catholic-Protestant couples, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people. But when childhood resident and early-career anthropologist Alex Anderson returns in 2016 to conduct research for a book on the Ark, it’s in sharp decline. The lake is polluted by a growing film of toxic algae, and the government wants the cheapest fix: Flood the lake to wash the algae out to sea and resubmerge the islands. The Connollys think Alex’s book could be the godsend they need to save their home. Carson has a talent for crafting uniquely neurotic characters, and the gnarled dynamics between them generate a compelling critique of gender roles and ecological decline in Northern Ireland and beyond. The book’s supernatural elements—including souls in a kind of bardo, women literally comatose with grief, and an island that eats dumped items—seem almost true to life set against the absurdity of the real-life drainage scheme, while also acting as moving manifestations of the idea that buried sins will always find a way to haunt the living.

An absorbing read for fans of family dramas, magical realism, and eco-fiction.