Synopsis:
ORKNEY ISLANDS, 1797 – Agnes Tulloch feels a little cheated. This windswept place is not the island paradise her husband promised it to be when they wed. Now with four young children, she struggles to provide for her family while her husband grows increasingly distant.
When a stranger comes ashore to rent an abandoned cottage, Agnes and the other islanders are abuzz with curiosity. Who is this wealthy foreigner and why on earth would he come to Eynhallow? Her curiosity is soon replaced with vexation when her husband hires her out as cook and washerwoman, leaving Agnes with no say in the matter. Agnes begrudgingly befriends this aristocrat-in-exile; a mercurial scientist who toils night and day on some secret pursuit. Despite herself, she’s drawn to his dark, brooding charm. And who is this Byronic stranger sweeping Agnes off her feet? His name is Frankenstein and he’s come to this remote isle to fulfill a monstrous obligation.
Review:
Eynhallow is more than a place. It is a state of mind, a word that conjures up desolation and loneliness. The latest by master scribe Tim McCregor with a placement in the Frankenstein canon. Over two centuries ago, a teenaged Mary Shelley sat down to pen one of the finest works of the Gothic ever written and left an indelible mark on science fiction and horror forever. McGregor follows her footsteps to deliver a book that does her legacy all the justice.
Agnes is a housewife living on Eynhallow with her husband and children, a miserable existence on a barren rock that is far from the paradise she was promised. Everything changes when a stranger arrives on the island; a handsome, brooding man whose name is Frankenstein. From the start, McGregor plunges the reader into Agnes’s head and presents her as a true gothic heroine; unfulfilled and longing for more, but irrevocably drawn to danger.
Then the stories takes its twists and nothing will be the same again. McGregor gets into the pure horror of Eynhallow; the horror of isolation, of losing oneself and changing forever. Maybe for the better, but also perhaps now and being unable to understand the difference but enjoying it all the same. Agnes deserves her freedom and will stop at nothing to claim the independence she warrants even if she must buy it in blood.
Nothing is spared in turning this sordid tale into a twisted retelling and sequel to Frankenstein. McGregor fiendishly subverts expectations and then keeps going in the best ways. Every word has a precise point and the story continues to haunt long after many of the characters in it have withered to dust.
A triumph. Paraphrasing the good doctor himself in the film: This story is indeed alive.
Rating: 9/10
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