Greenvoe, the tight-knit community on the Orcadian island of Hellya, has existed unchanged for generations, but Operation Black Star requires the island for unspecified purposes and threatens the islanders’ way of life. A whole host of characters - The Skarf, failed fishermen and Marxist historian; Ivan Westray, boatman and dallier; pious creeler Samuel Whaness; drunken fishermen Bert Kerston; earth-mother Alice Voar, and meths-drinker Timmy Folster - are vividly brought to life in this sparkling mixture of prose and poetry.
In the end Operation Black Star fails, but not before it has ruined the island; but the book ends on a note of hope as the islanders return to celebrate the ritual rebirth of Hellya.
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'a poetic, distinguished and totally delightful Orcadian story... full of humour and sensitivity and of the unsentimental poetry of raw experience'
" - Sunday Times
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'A precise, poetic and dazzling writer'
" - Guardian
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'Fine delicate prose'
" - Publishers’ Weekly
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'He transforms everything by passing it through the eye of the needle of Orkney'
" - Seamus Heaney
