Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Cal, a young gay art-school graduate, returns to a remote Scottish island after his devout father, John, suggests his grandmother is ill. In Falabay, a largely Presbyterian village, Cal hides his sexuality and recalls others watching him with unease. The story connects Cal and John through blood, faith, tradition, grievance, and violence, while also emphasizing shared commonalities they may not recognize. Cal’s coming-of-age depends on defining how he relates to his origins and what “home” means to him. His mother questions whether he wants to be there, framing the emotional stakes of returning.

"Set on a remote island off the coast of Scotland, this rich, intricate novel follows a young gay art-school graduate, Cal, who returns home when his devout father, John, a tenant farmer who raised him alone, intimates that his grandmother is ill."

"In Falabay, the largely Presbyterian village of his upbringing, Cal hides his sexuality; he remembers people looking at him, as a teen-ager, with "faint unease." Stuart's novel examines the threads that bind Cal and John together-blood, faith, tradition, grievance, violence, and more commonalities than they know."

"At the same time, it is a coming-of-age story, in which Cal must define the relationship between himself and his origins. "Do you even want all this?" his mother asks him, at one point. "To be home. To be here.""

"This eerie novel of obsession and transference alternates between two story lines. In one, two women move in together soon after they mix up their coats in a department-store café. One of the women, Laura, tells the roommate, Naomi, very little about herself, and appears to have no job or friends-indeed, no existence at all outside of the one the two women share."

Read at The New Yorker