Sweetland: A Novel

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, January 2015: There’s a quietness to Michael Crummey’s novel that adds to its power. Sweetland is about a man, Moses Sweetland, who lives on an island off of Newfoundland. The island itself is called Sweetland, named by Moses Sweetland’s ancestors, and it’s a dying place. In fact, the entire population has been offered a lump payment by the government to remove themselves from the island. There are only two holdouts to the deal: the village idiot and the sixty-nine year old Moses Sweetland. What’s most appealing about this subtle, entertaining, and quietly moving novel is the humanity of its characters and the genuine feel of Sweetland itself. Each character is real and truly imagined; it’s the kind of book and the kind of place where many readers will just want to linger. Communities like Sweetland, with their specific ways of talking and being, are growing less common. Crummey’s book is a testament to those places and the people who live there. --Chris Schluep