Short Review: The Adversary by Michael Crummey
Newfoundland village. Photo by Erik McLean on Unsplash
I immediately felt immersed in The Adversary’s setting, Mockbeggar, a remote fishing village in late 18th-century Newfoundland. Michael Crummey has written the best kind of historical fiction, in which his extensive research does not overwhelm the reader with information, but fuses with his imagination to portray a rugged place and the people who live there. His convincing specificity shows why this gripping novel won the 2025 Dublin Literary Award.
The plot is dominated by the sibling rivalry of Abe Strapp and the Widow Caines. They run mercantile businesses that control the supplies used by the fishermen but also the price of the fish they fetch. Abe is a drunken lout who agrees to marry a young daughter of another merchant only to increase his wealth, but is thwarted in this by his sister. The consequences and long-simmering resentments between the two propel the grim plot to a violent climax.
The distinctly drawn characters and granular details of life held my interest. Even the wealthier residents of Mockbeggar are subject to forces beyond their control: a harsh, destructive storm, predatory marauders, and the edicts of the governor in faraway St. John’s. It’s a hardscrabble existence for most of the inhabitants, made worse by the ‘killing sicknesses’ that invade the village and overpower the limited skills of the two characters with any medical knowledge. Such references to a pandemic resonate with our time, of course, as does the harsh economic system, but those echoes never drew me out of the absorbing narrative.
Crummey acknowledges his use of The Dictionary of Newfoundland English and A Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, research tools that help enliven the characters’ speech. Phrases like ‘on six men’s shoulders’ easily conjure an image of a coffin being carried, a frequent event in the novel. The second book, dating from 1811, provides colourful phrases actually used by the people of the time. We will never hear their voices, but their speech comes to life through insults like ‘dishclout’ and ‘tripes and trullibubs.’
But it is Crummey’s imagination that provides this vivid description of the pack ice drifting along the coast: “pans rising and falling on the tide-swell like a flock of sheep rubbing tight in a paddock.” Archaic insults, regional slang, and contemporary language seamlessly ground us in a distinct time and place.
While gritty details paint a bleak existence, there is some dark humour. Crummey reminds us of Newfoundland’s status as British colony, and the class conflicts that go along with it, when he describes the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. At the end of the day, the Irish workers sleep off their drunken carousing. The wily Abe Strapp had fostered that by offering credit to the men, encouraging them to leave their home brew and patronize the alehouses. The narrator offers a sardonic take on Abe’s greedy calculation, as the terms were expensive:
“He shifted to a discussion of how clever he’d been to think of offering credit for drink then, talking up the innovation as if it had never been undertaken in the history of the British Empire.”
Not content with exploiting the men in their working conditions, Abe abuses his power by taking advantage of them in their limited leisure time, too.
A touch of surreal dark humour comes from a pet crow that has somehow learned a few words and menacingly caws “Trouble, trouble, trouble” as the strong-willed characters careen from one conflict to another.
Newfoundland and Labrador is the one province I’ve never been to, in spite of long wanting to experience its rich culture and rugged beauty. Reading The Adversary reminded me of its beleaguered but intriguing history and made me want to visit even more. It’s the first novel I’ve read by Michael Crummey, but it won’t be the last.