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The Innocents  By  cover art

The Innocents

By: Michael Crummey
Narrated by: Mary Lewis
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Publisher's summary

FINALIST FOR THE 2019 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE 2019 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE 2019 ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2020 THOMAS RADDALL ATLANTIC FICTION AWARD
NATIONAL BEST SELLER
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2019 BY The Globe and Mail • CBC • Toronto StarMaclean's

"Crummey's novel has the capacity to change the way the reader sees the world." (Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury Citation)

From best-selling, award-winning author Michael Crummey comes a sweeping, heart-wrenching, deeply immersive novel about a brother and sister alone in a small world.

A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family's boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them.

As they fight for their own survival through years of meagre catches and storms and ravaging illness, it is their fierce loyalty to each other that motivates and sustains them. But as seasons pass and they wade deeper into the mystery of their own natures, even that loyalty will be tested.

This novel is richly imagined and compulsively readable, a riveting story of hardship and survival, and an unflinching exploration of the bond between brother and sister. By turns electrifying and heartbreaking, it is a testament to the bounty and barbarity of the world, to the wonders and strangeness of our individual selves.

©2019 Michael Crummey (P)2019 Doubleday Canada

Critic reviews

2019, Governor General's Literary Awards - Fiction, Short-listed

2019, Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Short-listed

2019, Scotiabank Giller Prize, Short-listed

2020, Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, Winner

2021, IMPAC Dublin Award, Long-listed

"Michael Crummey's The Innocents is a dazzling and myriad achievement. Set against the unforgiving Newfoundland frontier, this harrowing tale of two siblings eking out a teetering existence is difficult to witness and impossible to put down. But what makes this story timeless is Crummey's rich depiction of the human heart in extremis, the unflagging beat of life in a world that is too much to bear. Set aside whatever you're reading and pick this up - The Innocents is a masterpiece." (Smith Henderson, author of Fourth of July Creek)

"Michael Crummey's new novel The Innocents is a fantastic read. Written in graceful and evocative prose, Ada and Evered's story blurs the boundary between the quotidian and the strange until it becomes a meditation on the curious fact of existence itself. A wonderfully provocative and insightful book." (Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds and A Shout in the Ruins)

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