A pale man falls, lifeless, from the belly of a beached whale. As the colourless body is hauled from the rural Newfoundland seashore to the small parish of Paradise Deep, it unexpectedly springs to life.

So begins Galore, the latest novel from Giller-nominated author Michael Crummey. The unlikely arrival of this pallid, mute stranger marks the beginning of a tale that traces the Sellers and Devine families through six generations of unforgiving coastal livelihood. The story stretches from the Napoleonic era to the First World War, and though years of familial strife have made enemies of the clans, they are bound to one another by countless marriages, love affairs, accidents, and inevitable turns of fate.

Crummey’s poetics are like the landscape he describes: stark and sparse, but punctuated with a wild richness that creates the impression of something carefully controlled yet on the verge of bursting. The historical, almost medieval, Newfoundland setting proves fertile ground for his rich imagination; he describes
early medical procedures and fishing techniques as if he had held the scalpel and lowered the nets himself. And throughout, Newfie folklore is animated, with ghosts and curses as commonplace as the ubiquitous stench of cod.

Galore is an absolute pleasure. In Crummey’s capable hands, the setting breeds magic, and the individuals that populate its rugged terrain are nuanced and real, as gentle as they are harsh, as hateful as they are loving. Each unfolding generation flows into the next in a complex narrative that feels effortless, yet is woven so tightly that the magnificent artistry of its creator cannot be ignored.