An Island by Karen Jennings

​On a small unnamed island off the coast of an unnamed African country an old man lives and works at the lighthouse. He’s been on his own for a long time and before that his life has been so turbulent and tragic that being on his own is potentially the best situation for him and yet…it’s lonely.
One day the sea washes up a companion for him, a refugee who doesn’t speak his language. The old man is reluctant to accept this man, reluctant to trust him, but he doesn’t turn him into the authorities either. Instead, he takes care of him, feeds him, gives him shelter.
It would seem like a beginning of a heartwarming story about kindness of strangers, but it isn’t. To the book’s credit, it isn’t. Instead, it’s a story of lingering trauma and the way both cowardliness and violence linger in one’s psyche, eventually becoming interchangeable.
The old man’s story is fairly typical of his continent – his country, once a colony, has won autonomy…and wasted it. Subsequent dictatorships ripped apart the very fabric of society and the old man, once young, got tangentially caught up in the dream of rebellion and paid for it with 23 years of his life. Or in some ways, with his entire life. It’s a tragedy. It’s real in ways that don’t require place names. It’s poignant and has a gut puncher of an ending.
There's a universality to this story, hence the general and not the specific article in the title. The tragic arc of it is reminiscent of many third world post-colonial places throughout the world.
The real star of the show is the writing, though. Strikingly enough, this is a debut. Such terrific writing, so clear, so vivid, so concise, so precise, so engaging…it takes you away. Does that magical thing great books do.
It’s a very short novel, though for me it read longer than the state page count, but for its brevity it’s misses nothing and skimps on nothing. This is an entire story of an entire life. Tragic as it is. This is what dramatic literary work ought to be like. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.