Clear by Carys Davies

A beautifully written short novel about the price of isolation and the desire for community and connection that's perfect for fans of one of our fiction monthly picks, Paul's Harding's This Other Eden.

“Tender, riveting, and inventive is Clear, the newest offering and masterpiece from the brilliant Carys Davies. It will take your breath away...What a thrill.” —Sarah Jessica Parker

One of Vogue’s Best Books of the Year

Winner of the 2024 Bookmark Festival Book of Year
Shortlisted for the 2024 Books Are My Bag Award and the Historical Writers’ Association Crown Award
Longlisted for Blackwell’s Book of the Year and the 2024 Saltire Society Literary Award

A “daring and necessary...sophisticated and playful” (The New York Times) novel from an award-winning writer, Clear is the story of a minister dispatched to a remote island to “clear” its last remaining inhabitant—an unforgettable tale of resilience, change, and hope.

John, an impoverished Scottish minister, has accepted a job evicting the lone remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland—Ivar, who has been living alone for decades, with only the animals and the sea for company. Though his wife, Mary, has serious misgivings about the errand, he decides to go anyway, setting in motion a chain of events that neither he nor Mary could have predicted.

Shortly after John reaches the island, he falls down a cliff and is found, unconscious and badly injured, by Ivar who takes him home and tends to his wounds. “Clear chronicles the surprising bond that develops between these two men...pack[ing] a great deal of power into a compact tale” (The Wall Street Journal) about connection, home, and hope—in which John begins to learn Ivar’s language, and Ivar sees himself reflected through the eyes of another person for the first time in decades.

Unfolding during the final stages of the infamous Scottish Clearances—a period of the 19th century which saw whole communities of the rural poor driven off the land in a relentless program of forced evictions—this singular novel explores what binds us together in the face of insurmountable difference, the way history shapes our deepest convictions, and how the human spirit can endure despite all odds. Moving and unpredictable, “a love letter to the scorching power of language” (The Guardian), Clear is “a jewel of a novel” (The Washington Post)—a profound and unforgettable read.