Islands of Silence

November 18, 2002
Booth (Industry of Souls; Hiroshima Joe; etc.) offers a dreamy allegory of lost innocence in this novel about a young British archeologist who loses a chance at love when he's forced to serve in WWI. Alec Marquand is an old man, lying dying in a hospital; he barely moves and has not spoken a word in years, but his vivid memories are full of passion, intrigue and confrontation. He begins his career mapping Stone Age "brochs" on a remote Scottish island. There, he encounters a beautiful, otherworldly young woman, part mystical vision, part flesh and blood. Marquand is entranced by her innocence—she seems oddly brazen and unashamed of her nakedness. Though she doesn't speak and he knows nothing about her, they develop a sort of rapport, and she allows him to sketch her. Their unorthodox relationship is interrupted by his stepfather, a former colonel, who offers the young man a commission as the war with Germany approaches. Marquand refuses the commission, and the colonel has him imprisoned for refusing to serve. After doing time, Marquand endures a grueling tour of duty as a military medic. When he returns to the island, he catches only one more glimpse of the woman before she vanishes forever. Booth is a skilled storyteller, especially in the early chapters, when he brings Marquand's ghostly would-be lover to life. Marquand's effort to warm himself decades later with the memory of the unconsummated affair while trying to forget the horrors of war is moving as well. Not everyone will appreciate the mystical conceit, but readers who do will find this a solidly written, engaging tale.

December 15, 2002
This World War I-themed story journeys into the mind of psychiatric casualty Alec Marquand. To the world outside his hospital bed, Marquand is tantamount to autistic because he is inert and uncommunicative. However, Marquand allows the reader into his life, now ebbing away, years after he became willfully mute; indeed, at the end of the novel, Marquand admits to "a lifetime of self-imposed solitude." The voluntary aspect of his disorder is a surprise, because this choice is not well developed: Marquand (when young, for the point of view alternates between the youthful and hospitalized Marquand) instead dwells on his obsession with an exterior example of solitude. She is a feral young woman of the Scottish Hebrides who fascinates him. Before the war yanks him away, he strains to commune with this illiterate child of nature, memories of whom animate the dreams and imaginings of the elderly invalid. Psychological effects are thus the aim of author Booth's plotting (action scenes are instrumental, not essential), and this novel will draw readers who favor contemplative fiction given to interior exploration.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)