“An Island Apart”, by Lillian Beckwith

Beckwith, Lillian. An Island Apart. New York: St. Martin’s, 1994. Print.

I read this almost immediately after The Bridges of Madison County, not exactly by accident.  A pile of Beckwith’s books was at my parents’ house, hopefully not because my Mom was getting rid of them – I’ve always enjoyed these books, although I don’t remember reading this one when young.  I have particularly fond memories of her autobiographical book About my Father’s Business, and the semi-autobiographical The Hills is Lonely.

Like Bridges, this is a romance; but that’s about the only similarity between the two.  An Island Apart is set in Scotland, first in one of smaller cities, then on an unspecified island similar to Jura, the one my four-times-great-grandmother emigrated from.  The main characters barely know each other when they marry, and have what I would describe as a respectful, rather than loving, relationship throughout the book.  The last few pages of the book might be described as overwrought, but most of the novel is refreshingly straightforward and even, perhaps, unromantic.

I love the descriptions of the Scottish islands in Beckwith’s books and the people there.  The descriptions of their daily life fascinate me, since it is so different than mine, but it seems pretty likely that Flora Munn was feeding her chickens and making a fish-and-potato supper over a peat-burning fire in the mid-1800s, the same way that Beckwith was in the mid-1900s.

Beckwith was a mainlander who was told to go to the islands for her health, then fell in love with them and voluntarily stayed.  She has a writer’s eye for detail, and an outsider’s understanding of what details to include, but she is sympathetic, and her affection for the land and the people shows through all she writes (which does not prevent her from including a good deal of humour).  I highly recommend all her books.