The colony

The Women of Ireland, a painting encountered late in Magee's disturbing new novel, invites readers to contemplate an artistically revealing representation of three of the work's female characters. Though they do not command the book's narrative center, these women perceptively and sensitively gauge the human meaning--the human cost--of that narrative's harsh dynamics. At the center, readers find two men visiting a small island off the coast of Ireland in 1979: Lloyd, an English artist whose search for primal inspiration generates The Women of Ireland, and Masson, a French linguist committed to capturing the rhythms of that island's indigenous speech. But Magee's nuanced fiction exposes the cross-grained nature of Irish men and women who will not fit neatly into outsiders' designs, even those as seemingly innocuous as Lloyd's and Masson's. Infusing the intimate relationships of the women Lloyd paints--and of other islanders--with volatile political implications, Magee punctuates her chapters with terse reports of the violent acts of Irish rebels no longer willing to submit to the [cut?] English people's designs for their lives. The violence confronts Lloyd with grim questions about his country's imperialism and stirs in Masson dark memories of France's turbulent rule over Algeria. A compelling exploration of the intersection of the personal and the political.

Irish journalist and novelist Magee (The Undertaking) returns with the lyrical and trenchant story of an English landscape painter who visits a small Irish island during the Troubles. It's the summer of 1979, and an artist known only as Mr. Lloyd leaves London for a rented cottage on the island. Soon after, Jean-Pierre Masson, a French linguist, arrives to study Gaelic, a language he calls "ancient and beautiful" and wants to keep alive. From the beginning, the two clash, sniping at one another and arguing over whose work is more important. Meanwhile, the locals, wary of their guests' colonial prejudices, have their own ideas of what's worth cherishing. James Gillan, 15, wants nothing to do with a life of fishing and hopes to be an artist. Lloyd, struck by the boy's natural talent, promises him a life of fame back in London. Complications ensue after Lloyd falls in love with James's widowed mother, Mairéad. Throughout, Magee weaves in bulletin-like vignettes of sectarian violence, such as an IRA bombing in South Armagh, which stand in stark contrast to the guests' fantasies of an untouched world. Even more enriching is Magee's depiction of James, who critiques Lloyd's mediocre efforts in internal monologues ("You're not understanding the light at all... it buries underneath, diving between the waves as a bird might, lighting the water from below as well as above"). It's a delicate balance, and one the author pulls off brilliantly. (May.)

With the arrival of two foreigners, a painter and a linguist, a sparsely populated island off the Irish coast becomes the setting for life-changing choices and conflicts. Magee's multifaceted second novel is set in 1979 on a nameless rocky outcrop measuring three miles long and half a mile wide, population 92, where debates of profound significance about ownership and expression, language and culture, will develop. Mr. Lloyd, an English artist--heedless and demanding--has come to paint the island's harsh beauty, tackling birds, cliffs, and light before embarking on the huge symbolic canvas he will think of as his masterpiece. The other visitor is Jean-Pierre Masson, a French linguist with an Algerian mother, returning to the island to finish a thesis he's been working on for five years devoted to the speaking of Gaelic, the original Irish language, which is dying out--as is typical in cultures oppressed by a colonizer, in this case the British. The islanders, depicted with wit and restraint, differ in their responses to the two incomers. Young widow Mairéad sleeps with Masson and allows Lloyd to paint her nearly naked. Mairéad's 15-year-old son, James, discovers his own aptitude for art through Lloyd, intensifying his intention of escaping the legacy of the island and the burden of cultural expectation. Meanwhile, the women hold island life together, working incessantly, immovably rooted. And punctuating this panorama of lyrical beauty, effort, and complex connection, Magee introduces the steady drumbeat of murder, as the factions on the mainland--Protestant versus Catholic, Ulster loyalists versus the Irish Republican Army--bomb and shoot their enemies: soldiers, policemen, fellow citizens. The pace is unhurried, the tone often poetic as the author assembles location, character, and identity, but Magee's path is both subtle and steely, lending a sense of inevitability as opinions harden, trusts are betrayed, and old patterns reassert themselves, devastatingly. A finely wrought, multilayered tale with the lucidity of a parable. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.