Harare Review of Books

178 pages.

First published Feb 22, 2024 (RDS Publishing)

Fiction.

My second gothic horror novel of the year, breaking some kind of record. From the first few pages, I knew this was a book I was going to enjoy, no matter what the plot was: Tim McGregor has a way with words. But this is a marvellous plot: a small island with a tiny population of twenty people or four families, very insular (heh) and pretty unfriendly to outsiders. And then a mysterious (—”Byronic”) outsider comes to spend a season there, attracting the curious attention of a beleaguered and weary woman, Agnes, who remains something of an outsider herself—partly, perhaps, because she’s rather freakishly tall and strong.

The story is wonderfully narrated by Agnes. (Some mild spoilers follow.) There is a lot of grief in this novel: Agnes is an abused wife who was married young to an older man after an unhappy childhood. An incident in the second half of the book is shattering, but drives much of the rest of the story forward. And then, the loneliness that’s a central theme of the book only intensifies as the novel progresses, without a happy ending (although there is a somewhat satisfying one).

Eynhallow (“the holy isle”) is a haunted island, apparently—but the real hauntings are human. There’s body horror, but even for squeamish me, it isn’t unreadable or gratuitous; all of it serves the emotional punch the novel packs. And Eynhallow will knock you out. McGregor has written brilliantly here about a central character in classic science fiction (the very first, actually). And Agnes is a fantastic and memorable character.

Read if you love books. This is one of those novels where genre isn’t a thing at all; Eynhallow is just wonderful. Very, very highly recommended. Already one of my favourite books of the year.

Thank you to Raw Dog Screaming Press and to NetGalley for access.

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