The Colony: Audrey Magee

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Writing in term time — and gorging on other people’s work during the school holidays, Magee has been writing The Colony since 2015.

The painting, by Sir William Orpen, dates from 1916, a significant year in Irish history since it marked the beginning of Ireland's final fight for freedom from its British colonisers—attained in 1922 (but only for three-quarters of the country, hence the 'Troubles' in the north of the country where the struggle for freedom was still going on in 1979). Among other things, Orpen's large canvas is a comment on the conflicting pagan and Christian elements in communities in the west of Ireland. The figure in the top left corner is a west of Ireland artist called Sean Keating wearing homespun clothes from the Aran Islands. Keating had been a protégé of Orpen's just as Magee's character James was of the English artist Lloyd—and James wore similar woolen clothing. The semi-naked woman in the foreground of the painting, seated with her arms raised, is almost exactly as Mairéad is described in some of Lloyd's preparatory sketches for his homage to Gauguin. Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. The American author John Gardner reportedly said there were only two plots in literature: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. Audrey Magee's second novel is firmly in the latter camp, but with a unique spin. The Colony sees two strangers come to "town", which is to say, a small island off the west coast of Ireland, three miles long and a half-mile wide. In the late 1970s, this isolated strip is home to 12 families, or 92 inhabitants, most of whom view their summer visitors with a mix of scepticism and fear.The opening scenes of Mr Lloyd bumbling around in a currach for his crossing to the island were beautifully done. The initial descriptions of the villagers, the windswept cliffs, the puffins, rabbit stew, how to make an Aran jumper- all good. Where I started to get restless probably coincided with the introduction of the French linguist. There were now little asides about the history of the Irish language, coupled with the reportage from the mainland - it became a real question of why I might not just prefer reading a book on Irish history instead.

The significance of the isolated island to these visitors, the significance of the visitors to the islanders, and the interactions among them are interrupted with increasing frequency by news of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Old and new, insiders and outsiders, human nature and politics; the uneasy tug of war among all these things. However, as the novel went on, I grew bored. It's mostly a character driven novel, where I felt it was going to be more plot heavy. The introduction of two new members to a remote island community felt like a powder keg for conflict, and especially with the constant references to the events in the north, I felt we were building toward something more explosive.and the bilingual James (or Séamus, his Irish name, which Masson insists on using despite his request not to do so), who dreams of another life in London: He turned and dropped his right leg to search for the first step beneath him, his hands gripping the rusting metal as his leg dangled, his eyes shut tight, against the possibilities As you can probably tell by now, The Colony serves up a peculiar combination of the oblique and the overt. It’s a novel that both courts and refuses allegory, charting a disorienting course between a piercingly satirical realism on the one hand, and on the other, something much cruder – parable, perhaps, or fable. Brexit happened during the writing process, and Magee mirrors the trauma of this in Mr Lloyd’s subsequent behaviour to his talented protegee. a b O'Loughlin, Vanessa (13 February 2014). "The Undertaking: Eleanor Fitzsimons Talks to Audrey Magee". Writing.ie . Retrieved 22 April 2016.

He knelt on the concrete and slid the chest down the wall towards the boatman, the white plastic slipping under his fingers.The Colony is brimming with ideas about identity and soul; a canny, challenging, and never less than engrossing read.”