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Now Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2024
Donoghue takes us to the 7th century to tell a story about radicalization and fanaticism: In a dream, the famous Irish sage Brother Artt has a vision in which God tells him to take two monks, middle-aged Brother Cormac and young Brother Trian, to an uninhabited island in the Atlantic Ocean in order to turn it into a bastion of God. The three travel to , shown on the front cover of the novel (the island really holds a monastery which is a UNESCO World Heritage, but its history differs from the fictional version in the book). There, prior Artt requires his two monks to perform more and more unpractical, illogical, and dangerous acts to honor God at the expense of their own well-being and, ultimately, survival.

The text is a claustrophic chamber play about the perversion of faith, about fanaticism (and to me, strangely reminiscent of Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas, which deals with a wannabe cult leader that goes insane and is an allegory on German fascism). Practical Cormac became a monk late in life after the plague killed his family, younger Trian was given to the monastery as a child and carries a secret that, when it gets revealed, is the catalyst for the finale (although it remains a mystery to me why the author chose exactly that to be his secret - it feels like she just hints at very current debates that do not convincingly relate to the story). The two monks are fantastically rendered characters, their prior and his motivations remain somewhat enigmatic though.

All in all, this novel is atmospheric and beautifully written, but it does not have all that much to say: Fanaticism = bad. Although it's relatively short, it still feels too long. This should have been a novella or a short story.