On Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
By Andrea Elise
Happy summer, HPPR readers. This is Andrea Elise coming to you from Amarillo, Texas, to discuss the novel Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy.
The title of the book interested me from the start because one of my passions is studying migrations of all kinds: plants, animals, birds, people.
As an immigrant myself, I and my family migrated from a then-“Eastern Bloc” country to the United States in 1956.The process was long, chaotic and very difficult. McConaghy’s novel did not disappoint with that kind of theme.
The novel alludes to at least two different migrations. One refers to the migration of the arctic tern, a rare seabird, famous for completing the longest annual migration of any animal. It can log up to 25,000 to 50,000 miles annually.
Another migration is not designated as such but clearly concerns the “heroine” of the novel, Franny Stone. Franny had a traumatic childhood, and one way she copes is to wander from place to place.
The book toggles between past and present, which may also be inferred as a migration, letting our own minds wander to various times and locations.
When we meet Franny, she is in Greenland and has talked her way into traveling with a rough group of fisherfolk as they seek a good trawl. However, like much of the earth’s wonderful resources, fish are disappearing, due in large part to climate change.
The crew is not happy to have Franny on board until she proves her worth by saving a member who was been struck by a cable. She is also very hardy and can hold her own with the eclectic group, including the taciturn captain, Ennis.
Along the way, we learn that Franny has lost her parents and, at one point, impulsively married a fellow ornithologist whose name is repeatedly mentioned and frequently discussed in the book.[Side note: he is a character I would love to know more!]
We also learn that Franny had been in prison. Particulars of her crime will remain unwritten here because the details would provide a spoiler for this BookByte.
Many people may define this novel as dystopian in that it does include environmental collapse. Where have all the fish gone? Is this the last group of arctic terns we will see?
However, Migrations is also the best type of environmental fiction in that it shows us, in lyrical and evocative prose, what is at stake and how the world will change once animals are lost.
Franny speaks of how lonely it will be when the animals die and when it is just us on the planet. The ways in which these losses are part of the main narrative, as well as woven in more subtly throughout, is effective and haunting.
At one point when they are on land, Franny wanders away from the group and into the frigid waters around Newfoundland, Canada, feeling lost. She remarks that, “it isn’t fair to be the kind of creature who is able to love but is unable to stay.”
Franny understands that her true north is the true sea. Perhaps one of the most telling moments in the novel is when we learn of a sudden crisis that leaves Franny wondering how she can go forward in the abyss of the night alone and in grief.
She says, “It’s not love or fear. It’s the wilderness inside that demands I survive.”
Enjoy this book for its poetic and melodic prose and the reflection it presents.
This is Andrea Elise for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.
