The Library at the Edge of the World: A Novel

Some twenty-odd years earlier, Hanna Casey fled the oppressing and limiting Finfarran peninsula heading for London and dreams to work with art, maintaining library collections. But, a whirlwind romance and subsequent pregnancy led to a marriage. With the loss of that pregnancy and a decade-later birth of her daughter, she thought her life complete. But, when the realization came that her now ex-husband had a long-standing affair with a family friend, she packed up herself and her daughter and ran home. Refusing even a penny from her ex, she’s reinvented herself as a prim, proper and perhaps even coldly efficient librarian in the little town of Lissbeg, rebuffing opportunities for friendship and closeness with everyone. What emerges here is the slow unraveling and unburdening of Hanna’s grief, as she learns to see just who her ex-husband is, her own vulnerability and willingness to take a backseat to everyone else’s ideas, her own discontent with her mother and the gradual definition of her own life, made in her own making. Sure there are huge and small missteps, some impulsive decisions and outbursts on her part and a little piece of land with an overgrown garden, leaky roof and field full of abandoned appliances, she starts to find a path. Never easy or solely gentle, the self-interest that spurred Hanna’s growth was gradual, she often could be found kicking and screaming (metaphorically) with her ‘face like the backside of a chicken’ being her go-to expression through much of the story. But, what is most striking is the changes in Hanna – it isn’t that we get to know her better, for she is almost wholly unlikable in her pity-party prickles out persona early on, but the changes, the flashes of optimism and determination that arise through each moment she sees something new, or takes a moment to really listen. The strength from the elderly nun, the desperation of her assistant Conor, the brightness and optimism of the girls at HaberDashery, her mum, her daughter and so many others, the story reads simply with plenty of moments, characters and conflicts that brighten and enliven the read. The growth and changes in Hanna were contrasted with the rehab of her little cottage and the stalwart, strange and always bartering Fury and the Divil, you’ll want to head to this little peninsula, see the gardens and seal-cove and visit the new illuminated text in the Lissbeg Library. I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via Edelweiss for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.