Migrations

Ever since being blown away by the level of intimacy and suspense Charlotte McConaghy cultivated with readers in her 2021 novel Once There Were Wolves, I have had this title, its standalone precursor, on my TBR pile. The tricky part was just finding some uninterrupted reading time for it, since I already knew that whenever I picked up Migrations I would not want to put it down again.

“Mam used to tell me to look for the clues.
“The clues to what?” I asked the first time.
“To life. They are hidden everywhere.”

Once again, reading McConaghy’s first-person narrative is a fully immersive and mesmerising experience. Her narrator Franny is both a magnetic and enigmatic character — one that is recklessly courageous and independent, show more endearingly passionate, yet emotionally fragile, traumatised and constantly in a state of fight-or-flight. She is both crusader and a metaphorical impending car crash — a combination hard to look away from.

Migrations‘ overarching dystopian world is eerily ours simply fast-forwarded to a near future when the climate change impacts scientists have long forecasted, such as raised sea levels and flora and fauna extinctions, have come to pass. Continue reading: https://www.bookloverbookreviews.com/2025/01/migrations-charlotte-mcconaghy.html show less

Set in a dystopian future when most animal species have gone extinct, protagonist Franny has decided to follow the last migration of the Arctic terns. As the story opens, she is in Greenland trying to convince a fisherman and his crew to take her on a voyage to Antarctica. She tells them the birds will direct them to the fish.

The storyline alternates between her present journey and flashbacks to her past. Franny is a wanderer who knows little about her parents, who vanished from her life when she was young. We learn about her life in Ireland and Australia, as well as how she met her husband and what happened between them. It gradually becomes evident that there are other, deeper reasons for her decision to embark upon this quest.

It is show more a story of both the environmental damage caused by humankind and a very personal story of a damaged woman. The writing is atmospheric. There is a little too much melodrama in Franny's backstory for my personal taste, and parts of it stretch belief to the breaking point, but overall, I appreciated it and found it easy to remain engaged. show less

Oh, WOW. This book. Just stunning, gorgeous, heartbreaking, marvelous. I looooved it.

Franny is a wanderer by nature; she feels the pull of the ocean or some other call of nature and follows it without thought. Now she is following the migration path of the Arctic terns, convinced that this will be the final flock of Arctic terns making their last migration before they die and become an extinct species as a result of climate change caused by humans. She convinces Ennis, the captain of a fishing ship, to take her. As the ship and its crew make the long trek following the migratory path of the Arctic terns, Franny's past comes back to haunt her, endangering the crew and herself and the entire expedition.

Through flashbacks to various points show more in Franny's past, author Charlotte McConaghy slowly reveals the dark events that led Franny to where she is on this desperate journey. The bits and pieces that gradually come to light are devastating revelations -- horrifying, profoundly sad, nostalgic, absolutely heartbreaking. McConaghy has quite a skill in writing about the ship's traveling through violent storms; in these passages, the book is like an amazing adventure story. McConaghy also has quite a skill in writing the quiet passages that speak to the heart, that talk about family and love and figuring out where we belong.

I enjoyed "Migrations" immensely. It absolutely broke my heart and made me cry, but it also gave me hope. Brava, Charlotte McConaghy. What an amazing U.S. debut novel! show less

Set in the very near future where the climate has been decimated resulting in the gradual loss of most animals and birds, main character Franny Stone Lynch will remain with me for a long time. She is trying to follow the last of the Arctic Terns on what may well be their final journey. Absolutely beautiful in both the writing and the depiction of what our world may evolve into. Franny's personal story is breathtaking and her journey haunting. Could this be my book of the year? I thought I'd already read it (Driftless comes to mind) but who knows. This one was certainly wonderful.

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy takes us into the future where we see nature’s wonders slowly extinguish. A world with no birdsong. A world where the things we take for granted today have become a memory. This is the dystopian world in which we meet Franny Stone. A woman who finds comfort in leaving… and takes us on an incredible journey of redemption.

This book is about many things, but most importantly, to me, it’s about belonging. Belonging to place… people…and purpose. Belonging to the intangible things that course through our veins. Our bloodlife.

If you have ever longed for or been abandoned by someone... if you have ever felt sorrow when leaving or by being left behind... if you have ever felt lonely for or suffocated show more by something…. you are in these pages.

“Maybe I thought I’d discover whatever cruel thing drove me to leave people and places and everything, always. Or maybe I was just hoping the bird’s final migration would show me a place to belong….”

Charlotte McConaghy’s prose is pure warmth. I wept. I imagine you will, too. show less

In the wake of a lifetime of travel and wandering, touched with tragedy, Franny Stone talks her way onboard a fishing ship so that she can track what she believes to be the final migration of the last arctic terns, from the Arctic to Antarctic. She convinces the captain, Ennis, that the birds will lead them to the remaining fish - Ennis' dreamed-of Golden Catch - and is warily welcomed aboard by the small, tight-knit crew. In first-person narrative that tacks between past and present, readers understand more of Franny's history in Ireland and Australia, her mother's death, a stillborn baby, time spent in prison, and her ornithologist husband Niall. Set in a possible near future where the sixth wave of extinctions has progressed show more significantly, Franny - and her birds - is a character to root for.

See also: The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

Quotes

But I've a calmer heart, too, living alongside the savage one. (53)

[My mother] was always aware of life's marvels and its perils, and of how closely entwined the two are. (66)

It isn't fair to be the kind of creature who is able to love but unable to stay. (119)

Something uncomfortable lives in the moment, waiting. (158)

I wonder if there is meaning in any death, ever. (178)

He hasn't reached whatever line he won't cross. (179)

"The stronger you are, the more dangerous the world." (Anik, 179)

But there's no way to conjure fear if it doesn't exist....I have never feared the sea. (190)

It's impossible to control someone else's capacity for forgiveness. (194)

...in our self-importance, in our search for meaning, we have forgotten how to share the planet that gave us life. (195)

All these humans have left no space for anything else. (196)

Saving specific animals purely on the basis of what they offer humanity may be practical, but wasn't this attitude the problem to begin with? (209)

So in my heart I let them go. Nothing should have to struggle so much. If the animals have died it will not have been quietly. It will not have been without a desperate fight. It they've died, all of them, it's because we made the world impossible for them. (221)

"There's a difference between wandering and leaving." (Niall to Franny, 232)

"All our touching does is destroy." (Niall, 250) show less

Wow! I was simply mesmerized - caught up by this novel from page one, with its woman narrator catching and banding Arctic terms in the frozen wastes of Greenland in an unspecified future time, and an opening line of, "The animals are dying. Soon we will be alone here." Yes. Chilling. And Greenland at that. But not just Greenland. No. Because Franny Stone's story shifts constantly back and forth in time and place. Ireland and Australia are also key to the story of this woman born with a wildness within her that allows her to love but not to stay put. Indeed, the forward momentum of th novel takes her from Arctic north all the way south to Antarctica, as she attempts to follow the migration of the terns, aided by a commercial fisherman show more and his crew whose livelihoods have just been declared illegal because the fish it is feared, are all but gone. So there is a kind of illicit "road trip" (or, perhaps better, a "sea voyage") aspect to the novel, as Franny, the captain and crew warily get to know each other. And Franny's past is shrouded in mystery and filled with secrets, which are gradually and artfully revealed as the story unfolds. But enough said, perhaps, because MIGRATIONS is such a beautiful book, so perfect in form and its finely wrought characters, that I'm not about to ruin it for anyone who has not yet read it. But I'm pretty late to the party in that respect, because the book was a national bestseller last year, and has purportedly already been translated into twenty languages. And it is the first book by Charlotte McConaghy, a young Australian (by way of Ireland, I suspect). My hat is off to her. I will definitely be reading her new book, already out, ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES. As for this one, my very highest recommendation. If you enjoy literary fiction of the highest calibre, READ THIS BOOK.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less