Bleaker House

Stevens, Nell. Bleaker House. New York: Doubleday, 2017. Print

First Sentences:

This is a landscape an art-therapy patient might paint to represent depression: grey sky and a sweep of featureless peat rising out of the sea.

The water is the same colour as the clouds; it is flecked by white-capped waves, spikes of black rock, and, intermittently, the silvery spines of dolphins 

Description:

In Nell Stevens' Bleaker House, she recounts her early efforts to write a novel on a remote, wind-swept island in the Falklands. She had earned a fellowship to spend time anywhere of her choosing to write a novel and, yes, she chose Bleaker Island, "eight square miles of rock and mud," to assure she would have no distractions. Being the only person on the bitter cold, tree-less, penguin-ridden island she certainly achieved that desire.

The ground is flat and beige and unchanging, a rolling scene of mud and grass and gorse. There is nothing I can see that distinguishes one mile from the next....It feels as though we are at sea, surrounded by water with no sight of land, and might sink at any moment without a trace....This is the bottom of the world.

But could she actually come up with an idea and then write a novel in all that quiet? Time would tell.

Bleaker House describes her daily routines, efforts at writing, and struggles with understanding her choices and goals, both current and in her past. Stevens is a clever writer who allows readers access to her stream-of-consciousness thoughts on writing and life on Bleaker Island as she faces writing challenges, boredom, and self-realization. Stevens envisions writing a crime novel since no crimes have ever been committed on Bleaker Island. We readers are permitted to follow her research efforts, plot outlines, and character development. But will it work itself into a novel? That is the question Stevens struggles with during her walks through the roadless, countryside among the sea lions and penguins.

She figures she must write 2,500 words a day to complete and revise a novel during her forty-one days on the island. Schedules and food rationing become a daily priority, but she begins to doubt her plot and even writing skills as the days go on.

A very personal, absorbing memoir about a distant environment and one woman who tries to create something new. Her struggles and triumphs, along with her daily routines to keep her sanity, put readers directly into the Bleaker Island world, something most people will never experience first-hand. For that feeling along with the musing of the deeply introspective author Stevens make Bleaker House a solid, engrossing read.

Surrounded by people, it is very easy to feel alone. Surrounded by penguins, less so.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Beston, Henry. Outermost House.   

Classic memoir of the author's year of solitude on an isolated beach in Cape Cod as he tries to capture the natural beauty of that environment, its animals and plants.