On Christmas Eve 1617 a storm descends over the coast of Vardø, Noway’s far north and within the blink of an eye kills most of the island’s men.
Twenty-year-old Maren stands among the women watching in horror as their husbands, brothers, sons, and fathers are swallowed by the sea. They watch in horror, they drag the bodies out, they bury their men, and then they man the fishing boats and set their minds on survival. But their actions are viewed with suspicion, and soon a new man is sent up north, all the way from Scotland, to take control of the situation. Absalom Cornet has a reputation for being a ruthless witch hunter, and now he is to free the small community of any evil influence which, according to the rumors, is being spread by the few Sámi inhabitants. On his way to Vardø, Absalom picks up a young wife in Bergen. Ursula is tender, soft, and entirely unprepared for the harsh winter and rough terrain of her new northern home. Unprepared also for who and what she is going to encounter there: women who live independently. And might there be something else entirely in store for her in this remotest of places? Might there actually be a chance at love despite the hatred her husband sparks and emanates? As accusations of witchcraft come ever closer, the women of Vardø have to decide which side they're on. Will they fight for one another, prove the strength of a community of women? Or will they submit to fear and let the men take back the reins and dispose of anyone deemed outside the norm?
The opening scene swept me away. Hargrave’s scenic descriptions are exceptionally good. So good, in fact, that once I had fully arrived in Maren’s rough world of harsh winters, dirt, and frost, I found it almost jarring to enter Ursula’s prim and proper family home in Bergen. But I got to know her too, witnessed the strength that blossomed from behind that wall of timidity once she was supplanted out of her relative comfort and into that world of women fending for themselves. There was a section, around the second quarter of the book, that I had to fight my way through, where her pacing felt a little off and the narrative lost some of its drive while setting up the meat of the story. But once I got through that, I was gripped and found myself turning the pages without even registering it. The writing is accomplished, often excellent, the author seems confident in her voice and thus manages to take us away on this journey into unknown or little-known territories. The bleakness of the scenery she writes so convincingly turns beautiful.
The story is inspired by true events, a murderous storm, and an epidemic of witch burnings. Hargrave manages to weave the snippets of what is known of this period in history into a convincing feminist tale that never seems anachronistic or revisionary, yet powerful, almost revolutionary, in what it lays bare. I would have loved to learn more about the Sámi, whose ancient practices, runes, and charms were viewed with such burning hatred by the Catholic Church. Without wanting to give too much away here, it was very interesting to me who was blamed for the events, who was accused of witchcraft, and who was actually condemned, and how so many different dynamics are at play in these extreme forms of ostracism: xenophobia, fear of difference, envy, greed, desperation… Kiran Millwood Hargrave certainly managed to make some of these complexities apparent, though at times I found myself wishing she had gone even further, deeper into the specific power relations of Swedish and Sámi people in the north of Norway at that time.
Book review
Published by Picador, 2020
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