Migrations

June 15, 2020
Young adult novelist McConaghy (the Chronicles of Kaya series) makes her adult debut with the clunky chronicle of Franny Stone, a troubled woman who follows a flock of endangered Arctic terns on what is believed to be their final migration home. Franny’s mother, who vanished when Franny was seven, warned her that women in their family are unable to resist the urge to wander. While working at a university in Galway, she meets ornithologist Niall Lynch, who immediately declares they’ll spend their lives together, and they implausibly marry. Unfortunately, Franny’s overwhelming desire to travel, her sorrow over their stillborn daughter, and a sleepwalking episode in which she chokes Niall drive a wedge in their marriage. Niall had always longed to track the terns, and Franny does so by convincing a fishing boat captain that she can help him find fish in exchange for transportation. Despite the ragtag crew’s initial distrust of Franny, she becomes part of the team. McConaghy divulges more about Franny’s dark past as she writes Niall letters and reflects on their relationship, as well as the true nature of her quest. While McConaghy’s plot is engaging, her writing can be a heavy-handed distraction (“out flies my soul, sucked through my pores”). Lovers of ornithology and intense drama will find what they need in this uneven tale.

Starred review from June 1, 2020
Franny Stone cannot be contained. In a bleak near-future, she is a wanderer and a sleepwalker, a swimmer and a bird lover. Born in Australia, raised in Ireland by her mother while knowing nothing of her father, she ends up back in Australia with her paternal grandmother. Returning as an adult to Ireland, she works as a cleaner at a university, where Niall Lynch, a famous professor of ornithology, willingly succumbs to her dangerous bewitchment. Their shared ardor for the wild turns tragic as the sixth extinction accelerates. McConaghy's transfixing, gorgeously precise novel is propelled by Franny's desperate effort to follow what may be the last flock of Arctic terns on their perilous migration from Greenland, where she finesses her way onto a fishing boat, to Antarctica. Alternating chapters dart back to gather the scattered puzzle pieces of her traumatic past. The scenes on board the Saghani, with its intriguing outcast crew, are psychologically intense and physically harrowing. McConaghy's evocation of a world bereft of wildlife is piercing; Franny's otherworldliness is captivating, and her extreme misadventures and anguished secrets are gripping. Some may find this darkly enrapturing work of ecofiction too heavily plotted, but all the violence, shock, and loss Franny navigates do aptly, and unnervingly, foreshadow a possible environmental apocalypse.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2020

Despairing of the fate of nature, Franny Stone determines to travel to Greenland, locate the world's last flock of Arctic terns, and follow them on their final migration. To that end, she persuades the captain of the Saghani to take her onboard, arguing that in its travels the flock will lead the crew to fish. But Franny carries dark secrets, and as she starts to become unhinged, the crew worries that she's not so much going toward the light as running away. Australian author McConaghy's first adult literary fiction and first U.S. publication is timely indeed; with a 200,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2020

In her first adult literary fiction and her first U.S. publication, Australian author McConaghy offers a story of nature on the verge of collapse even as a young woman struggles with her past. As the novel opens, Franny Stone travels to Greenland so she can follow the world's last flock of Arctic terns on its final migration, talking her way onto a fishing vessel trolling for perhaps its last catch. Franny is forever on the move, suffering from perpetually fractured relationships and a sense of not belonging; she's a wanderer, like her Irish mother, who eventually left her to be raised by her paternal grandmother in faraway Australia, with her relationship with her absent ornithologist husband creating an edgy undercurrent throughout. The slow revelation of a tragedy for which Franny feels responsible adds a thrillerlike dimension to an already involving narrative made stronger by the absence of time markers; it could be taking place in two years or 20 years, but it could just as well be happening today. VERDICT A consummate blend of issue and portrait, warning and affirmation, this heartbreaking, lushly written work is highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 2/12/10.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.