James (or Seamus to JP) spends time with the English artist and finds out he has an aptitude for painting - which opens up new possibilities for him.

Of course ‘the colongy’ is about colonisation - from the influence of the english language, to James not wanting to be a fisherman and wanting to change his life. The Frenchman's motives are complex, and far from altruistic—he seeks to dominate both the beautiful widow and the language itself for his own private purposes. The Colony contains multitudes - on families, on men and women, on rural communities - with much of it just visible on the surface, like the flicker of a smile or a shark in the water.Occasionally, the lack of quotation marks and the drifting into other characters minds/viewpoints within the same sentences/paragraphs threw me and I found that jarring as well. He resents the infiltration of any English into the island, so Lloyd’s appearance is the last straw. Hearing people through history have changed sign language in the States through laws and policies, and some Deaf people feel English is superior, or that hearing is superior. Islands, in fiction, are always metaphors – and, as a rule of thumb, the smaller the island, the bigger the metaphor. Tit-for-tat assassinations become the background mood music, with the sickening crescendo arriving at the end of August, when Lord Mountbatten, the queen’s cousin and a war hero, is blown up with his family while on holiday in County Sligo.

Lloyd nurtures the artistic ambitions of her teenaged son James, absorbing and exploiting his painted images, as the pupil quickly surpasses his master's achievements. The writing is expressive, with various motifs running through it – like rabbits, apples, smells – and refrains, like “young widow island woman”. This works as both historical fiction and as an exploration of an enduringly thorny topic, and I loved the whole thing.I've always believed that good fiction can go to the beating heart of human reality in ways more likely to resonate with a reader than any textbook.

Her first novel, The Undertaking, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, for France's Festival du Premier Roman and for the Irish Book Awards. In this follow-up, an English painter named Mr Lloyd climbs with his luggage into a small, leaky currach and is rowed across the Irish Sea to an island off the west coast of Ireland. Audrey Magee worked for twelve years as a journalist and has written for, among others, The Times, The Irish Times, the Observer and the Guardian. In addition, the author inserts reportages about some of the murders which occur on the continent between the Protestants and the Catholics. In one telling moment, Mairéad and her brother-in-law Francis discuss the Mountbatten assassination in which two teenage boys were also killed.I was held, captivated, on this remote island with its wild landscape, unforgettable inhabitants, and two outsiders intent on finding their own version of the truth. Coincidentally, Lisa and Jacqui (JacquiWine’sJournal) both reviewed this book last month, and both are worth reading. Meanwhile, the islanders go about their business, continuing to speak their language with each other, while being willing to use English where it benefits them.