The Adversary

From the award-winning, critically acclaimed author of The Innocents ("Extraordinary"--Wall Street Journal) a dark, enthralling novel about love and its limitations, the corruption of power and the power of corruption.

In an isolated outport on Newfoundland's northern coastline, Abe Strapp is about to marry the daughter of a rival merchant to cement his hold on the shore when the Widow Caines arrives to throw the wedding and Abe's plans into chaos.

That ruthless act of sabotage is the opening salvo in a battle between the man and woman who own Mockbeggar's largest mercantile firms, each fighting for the scarce resources of the north Atlantic fishery, each seeking a measure of revenge on the person they despise most in the world. As their unshakeable animosity spirals further each year into vendettas and violence, the community is increasingly divided and even the innocents in Mockbeggar find themselves forced to take sides, with devastating consequences.

Through merciless seasons of uncertainty and want, through predatory storms and pandemics and marauding privateers, it is the human heart that reveals itself to be the most formidable and unpredictable adversary for each person drawn, inevitably and helplessly, into that endless feud.

Compulsively readable and uncompromising, The Adversary is a masterful evocation of a lost time, and a shadowed mirror to our modern politics of grievance and retribution.

Author: Michael Crummey
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Published: 02/06/2024
Pages: 336
Weight: 1lbs
Size: 8.25h x 5.50w x 0.81d
ISBN: 9780385550321


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/01/2023 pg. 2
Publishers Weekly 10/23/2023
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2023