The Unravelling by Polly Crosby, written during lockdown and published late last year by Jonathan Ball Publishers, is an intriguing read filled with mystery, history, science, nature and a touch of mystic to boot.
In the summer of 2018, Tartelin Brown, who recently lost her mother, accepts a job as assistant to the eccentric recluse Marianne Stourbridge on the fictional island of Dohhalund. The island ‘sits uneasily between land and sea’, and is loosely based on Orford Ness, a cuspate foreland shingle spit on the Suffolk coast. Tartelin's task is to catch butterflies for Miss Stourbridge, a wheelchair-bound lepidopterist who spends her days setting butterflies in the dusty rooms of her crumbling Gothic clifftop home dubbed Dogger Bank House.
But Tartelin soon realises that Dohhalund is no ordinary place. There is something strange, even sinister, about the island, which was closed for more than six decades after the fateful events of 1955. Even the seas surrounding the dreary and desolate land, according to its inhabitants, are ‘made up of unspeakable sadness…’
While hunting butterflies, Tartelin encounters some other strange wildlife, and senses that the island holds dark secrets. Curiosity soon has her delving into her employer’s surreptitious past, whose family has owned the spit of land for hundreds of years. Miss Stourbridge’s reticence surrounding the family’s mysterious eviction off the island after World War II only invigorates Tartelin’s investigation.
I must confess, I found the novel somewhat ambitious in the number of themes it sought to explore and messages it attempted to convey, and it further exhausted me by playing out over three different timelines to include several significant happenings on the island. These were as myriad as a thriving herring fishing period, pearl harvesting, silk production of the 1920’s, the outbreak of war and bomb testing, and finally studies on butterflies and spiders.
That said, all the aforementioned is skilfully woven into an interesting narrative which (I think) seeks to explore how human interference rarely ends well, and often leads to tragedy for both man and nature. Perhaps, too, it is a story about the ephemeral nature of things, and the adaptability of not only man but also nature.
At the same time, The Unravelling has plenty of emotional undercurrents to sink your teeth into, and delves into guilt, loss and the healing powers of friendship.
If I’ve managed to daunt you into thinking it is too heavy a read, rest assured that The Unravelling’s gorgeous descriptions, lyrical prose, sense of mystery and mysticism, and masterful suspense, will keep you fascinated.
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