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Copyright 2001 Goose Lane Editions
There is a briney magic that imbues the pages of Theresa Kishkan’s slim novella Inishbream, as though the poet has woven a spell of seaweed and salt air into her storyteller’s net. It is a net the reader is happily caught in.
The nameless protagonist of Inishbream is a middle-aged woman from Vancouver Island. Travelling through Ireland she decides to settle for awhile and chooses the isolated and barren island of Inishbream for her stay. Here she moves in amongst the fishermen and stone cottages, and into a way of life that only exists in small pockets on the edges of our electrically lit, centrally heated world. It is a world that is dying away as more and more young people emigrate to the mainland and faraway countries.
The inhabitants of Inishbream do not at first welcome the strange woman from ‘away’, but she gradually earns their trust with her ability to tell tales of the island she herself comes from. She marries a local man, thinking to make her stay permanent, only to find that she truly is a wanderer at heart. Her restlessness causes her to form a relationship with an Irish gypsy on the mainland, an act that causes her downfall on Inishbream.
Within the tapestry that Kishkan weaves are the glimmers of an enchantment that is uniquely Irish. One smells the peat smoke and damp wool, hears the casual talk of mending nets and the tales of evil fairies told by the fireside. Kishkan fully captures the poignancy of a world that is dying away and is witness to its own passing.
Inishbream is a swift read, Kishkan carries us along on a ribbon of lovely prose that flows like poetry and envelops us for a short time in a world that will soon be no more than memory.
Theresa Kishkan is the author of six poetry collections, and a book of essays. Her first novel, ‘Sisters of Grass’ was widely praised. She lives on Vancouver Island with her husband.
Book review written by Cindy Brandner author of Exit Unicorns
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