A review by jrosenstein
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan

4.0

This is one of the books where you can see how the author started with a simple idea and then followed it out to its natural conclusion. The starting point to me seems something like, "what if there was an island where all the men married selkies..." Lanagan takes Irish folklore and sees what happens when you bring it into the real world. Admittedly the first half of the book drags a bit, but overall I found the world fascinating and the characters very real and moving. Lanagan tones down her hallucinatory prose here but it's still beautifully written and evocative of the sea and windy Rollrock. I also like the seal-women as a sort of metaphor for the distance between men and women and mothers and sons.