Michelle Herbert reviews The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan…
The Gloaming is one of those books filled with mystery and wonder. Unlike a fairy tale, that doesn’t mean that everything is good, as lots of bad things happen. The Gloaming is a book full of stories that people tell each other and the truths they omit but told in a way that is appealing, as the line between the two is very thin and can be twisted to become fantastical.
The Gloaming revolves around a family of five, Signe and Peter lived extraordinary lives before they met each other and decided to move to the island. Signe and Peter have three children; Islay, who is beautiful, Mara who is plain and Barra who is much younger than the girls, who is described as being angelic. The way the story is told, you think it will follow Islay, but really it is about Mara and how she is slightly removed from reality due to the stories about the magic of the island she has been told whilst growing up.
Mara just wants a happily ever after, when we first meet her she is a teenager and no one has ever told her that life is more than a story. As the middle child Mara has always believed the stories their Mother tells both Mara and Islay, and she also doesn’t notice the way Islay embellishes them. They have their own rituals as well, but unfortunately and accidentally Barra also likes to imitate his older sisters and is too young to know that actions have consequences.
As mentioned this is a book about stories set in the magical world Islay and Mara have created, where their stories take on a life of their own. We find out more about Islay and Mara’s parents as The Gloaming progresses, about the stories they told each other, as well as themselves. The island is off the coast of Scotland, and although the world is modern, it is also has a timeless feel where things don’t really change, as people go about their lives.
Mara dreams of leaving the island and finally seeing the world, but it is Islay who abruptly leaves with no indication that she will ever be back. Mara feels that she must be responsible for her parents, so she sacrifices her dreams in the hope that she will fill the holes in their family. It is heartbreaking that the family do not talk to each other and they hide how they really feel. The whole family seems to live in a bubble, where things happen to them, but they seem to keep moving forward never seeming to want or ask for more. They are all haunted by tragedy, but keep their feelings to themselves rather than supporting each other.
The book revolves around living on an island, which means you are never too far from the sea. In this story, the sea is almost a character giving the family things, but it is the nature of the sea to also take what it wants. The sea and the way that Islay and Mara interact with it can seem mythic, especially as the characters have rituals to not appease the sea, but to give it things as well. Mara’s character is also like an island, as she is isolated and seems to be surviving rather than dealing with her present.
The Gloaming seamlessly skips between the past and the present, as well as the perspectives of different family members, so we really feel that we know more about them than their family does. It is interesting that the family doesn’t speak about the trauma of loss, but we do see how they try and deal with it. The Gloaming asks questions, that you don’t always want to know the answer to. Stories within stories make for a vivid world, with an almost dark magic beating at the heart of it, where who knows what is really real, and should life be compared to these stories?
Logan’s story is a book about death and discovering life, it is beautifully written and flows really well, the pacing is never rushed and it is easy to drift along with the story. It can be frustrating in places due to the characters trust in the stories they tell themselves rather than the reality that is before them. Due to the nature of the book, it can seem slightly unsatisfying at times as there are a few parts that feel insubstantial, like a dream, which isn’t really a bad thing, unless you like your stories to have concrete endings.
Michelle Herbert
Originally published August 21, 2018. Updated August 20, 2018.
