So here’s the metaphor: if he was paying homage on one level to the life of his father, he’s equally paying homage to the dying life of the outports of Newfoundland, the small communities that began to disappear when the moratorium on cod fishing was levied 20 years ago and have continued to erode ever since.Ĭrummey says he doesn’t want to speak for all Newfoundlanders. Crummey’s father, you see, is never far from the conversation he died of cancer 12 years ago, in 2002. “I wasn’t conscious of this while I was writing the book, but in some ways I think Sweetland’s story is almost the story of someone who’s dealing with a terminal illness,” he says. Talking about the book and the character, Crummey reveals a much more personal history. The only catch: everyone in the community has to agree. In the book, the community of Sweetland is being offered a resettlement package from the government: $100,000 per person to leave for the mainland. This time, instead of recording the past, Crummey has set Sweetland in the present day, 2012. Wrecked, his second novel, dealt with Newfoundland and the Second World War. He explored the deep past in his first novel, the Giller-nominated River Thieves, which dealt with the disappearance of the Beothuk population. But dig a little deeper and, Crummey says, “It’s about mortality.”Īll of Crummey’s books have dealt in various ways with Newfoundland’s history. On the surface it’s a book about a dying community - the outport island of Sweetland - and one man, Moses Sweetland, who refuses to leave it. So it took Crummey, 48, a while to hit on the idea for Sweetland. It was set in 19th-century Newfoundland, capturing many of the myths that helped shape the cultural landscape of that province - and a Commonwealth Writers prize.

Galore was a sweeping novel encompassing generations of families in the fictional outport Paradise Deep. It felt in some ways like the book I was meant to write.” “I had a huge hangover after Galore,” Crummey admits, referring to his last, award-winning book, published in 2009. That question plagued Newfoundland writer Michael Crummey, whose fourth novel, Sweetland, is expected to be one of the big hits of the fall season. When you have written the book you think you were meant to write, what do you follow up with?

Galore michael crummey summary