“Hagstone” by Sinead Gleeson
Another novel located on a remote island! This one well off the coast of Ireland where there is a secluded community of women living, who call themselves the Inions – and on this island most of the community periodically hear strange noises, an unexplained eerie phenomenon which causes all women to have their menstral cycle.
It is against this background that Nell, an artist, island born and bred, struggles to make a living to support herself and her art; helped by acting as a tourist guide to summer visitors to the island. She is a feminist, environmentalist, beach-comber and swimmer who grows as much of her own food as she can but seemingly can afford a regular supply of gin or wine!
She is invited to help the Inion community to celebrate their 30th Anniversary on the island by creating a commemorative journal and spends much of the autumn out at Rathglas, the old convent at the end of the island where the Inions exist in seclusion. Her presence sometimes not welcomed by some of the women. Others, particularly one called Muireann, are more receptive. She and Nell becoming close friends.
The Inion community and Rathglas are dominated by Maman, who comes across as a complex not friendly character and one who Nell does not click with, but the chance of óut of season income, though a fee never seemed to be agreed, is sufficient to make her endure the stark studio they provide and Maman’s cold offhand manipulative behaviour.
Nell encounters Cleary, whilst swimming on a beach. He has recently returned to the island, where his uncle lives and they develop a relationship which provides the alternative plot to the novel’s main themes. This is the Inions, their way of life, beliefs and isolation and Nell’s art, where the author goes into some detail and in an afterword bibliographs her inspiration for some of Nell’s projects.
The themes are unusual; the eerie phenomena, the Inions, most met only in passing, all make for an interesting read. Nell is the heart of the story, whilst the island’s other inhabitants and visitors filter through the pages; there is even a washed up whale; all providing a diversion to the author’s main theme which is illuminated in places with descriptive phrases that catch the reader’s eye.
