“With the arrival of two foreigners, a sparsely populated island off the Irish coast becomes the setting for life-changing choices and conflicts.” the colony
arresting him, is anything but eager to take MJ’s case. But the murder of Richard Gross, MJ’s attorney and manager, ups the stakes. So does Sunny’s meeting with MJ’s second ex-husband, psychotherapist Dr. John Melvin, who stalked and nearly killed MJ in Shrink Rap (2002) before he was convicted and imprisoned. Melvin’s clearly as bent on revenge as ever, but the more Sunny looks around, the wider the pool of candidates grows. Eventually the trail leads to professor Charles Hall, who taught MJ writing and a few other things at Whitesboro College. Now old and suffering from dementia, he’s transfixed by his first sight of Sunny, whom he clearly mistakes for someone else before he withdraws even more completely from the world. Who did he think she was, and what secrets is MJ hiding that could endanger both herself and Sunny? Behind the overgrown subplots is a fleet and absorbing tale of crime and endless punishment.
THE COLONY
Magee, Audrey Farrar, Straus and Giroux (384 pp.) $28.00 | May 17, 2022 978-0-3746-0652-7 With the arrival of two foreigners, a painter and a linguist, a sparsely populated island off the Irish coast becomes the setting for life-changing choices and conflicts. Magee’s multifaceted second novel is set in 1979 on a nameless rocky outcrop measuring three miles long and half a mile wide, population 92, where debates of profound significance about ownership and expression, language and culture, will develop. Mr. Lloyd, an English artist—heedless and demanding—has come to paint the island’s harsh beauty, tackling birds, cliffs, and light before embarking on the huge symbolic canvas he will think of as his masterpiece. The other visitor is
y o u n g a d u lt
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kirkus.com
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fiction
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1 march 2022
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