Product Description

Greenvoe, the tight-knit community on the Orcadian island of Hellya, has existed unchanged for generations. However, a sinister military/industrial project, Operation Black Star, requires the island for unspecified purposes and threatens the islanders' way of life. In this, his first novel (1972), George MacKay Brown recreates a week in the life of the island community as they come to terms with the destructiveness of Operation Black Star. A whole host of characters - The Skarf, failed fishermen and Marxist historian; Ivan Westray, boatman and dallier; pious creeler Samuel Whaness; drunken fishermen Bert Kerston; earth-mother Alice Voar, and meths-drinker Timmy Folster - are vividly brought to life in this sparkling mixture of prose and poetry. In the end Operation Black Star fails, but not before it has ruined the island. But the book ends on a note of hope as the islanders return to celebrate the ritual rebirth of Hellya.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #200651 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 243 pages

Review
"a poetic, distinguished and totally delightful Orcadian story... full of humour and sensitivity and of the unsentimental poetry of raw experience' - Sunday Times"

About the Author
George Mackay Brown is one of the major Scottish literary figures of the twentieth century. A prolific poet and novelist, he took much of his inspiration from the myths and landscape of Orkney, and also from his deep Catholic faith. His collection of short stories A Time to Keep (1971) won the Katherine Mansfield Mentor short story prize and his novel Beside the Ocean of Time was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994. He died in 1996.

Customer Reviews

A lyrical, yet ominous portrait of island life
Greenvoe is well worth reading for anyone interested in issues of island communities. It weaves ancient Orkney myth and legend, sometimes written in the literary style of the ancient "Orkneyinga Saga",with the dynamics of everyday life in a dwindling, island community. There are portents throughout of impending doom to the island. I especially like the character of Mrs. Elizabeth McKee, mother of the local minister and her struggle with her "demons of memory". I ended the book , moved and saddened by the theme of the disappearance of a local culture. Highly recommended Susan Richardson