Wild Dark Shore a Mesmerizing Tale of Climate Change, Etc.

 

 

 

Wild Dark Shore (2025)

By Charlotte McConaghy

Flatiron Books, 298 pages.

★★★★★

 

It’s hard to classify Wild Dark Shore, the latest novel from Australian author Charlotte McConaghy. Is it a climate change apocalypse tale, a family saga, a romance, a mystery, a series of moral dilemmas, or a thriller? All of these, but did I mention ghosts? It’s filled with mostly metaphorical ones, but some in that liminal “not sure” category. McConaghy writes in short paragraphs and has multiple narrators–including those who have died–but it’s a tribute to her skill that we never get lost in her unorthodox constructions.

 

The setting in Shearwater Island, which is more than remote. Next stop, Antarctica. (Her model was Macquarie Island, halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica.) It is where the Salt family lives in an old lighthouse: Dominic (“Dom”) and his three children:

Raff (18), Fen (17), and Orly (9). Dom’s wife Claire died in childbirth nine years earlier as her  youngest son Orly came into the world. Dom never recovered from her death and “speaks” with Claire every day. His collection of Claire’s items became a veritable shrine.

 

The population of Shearwater was cut in half. It was also the home to a research team headed by Hank Jones, an NYU professor, who ran a seedbank there. With climate change ravaging the globe, his team of scientists–Naija, and brothers Alex and Tom–have set up a seed repository for whatever survives of humankind. The team is now dead or presumed so after a storm washed away Hank’s cabin and an inflatable Zodiac carrying Naija and Tom. Alex died earlier and is buried on the island. The biggest population of Shearwater are seals and penguins who, ironically, cavort on the beach near vats once used by traders to render them into oil.

 

For reasons McConaghy holds onto until near the end, Dom’s daughter Fen refuses to live in the lighthouse. She’s happiest among the marine animals, “speaks” to the dead ones, and resides in a fishing shack on the beach. It is from there that she spies a body floating in the tide, swims out to retrieve it, and is surprised to find a faint pulse. The population of Shearwater is about to grow by one; she is Rowan, who came to be with her husband: Hank. Like everyone else on Shearwater, she harbors a secret. Raff is probably dyslexic, but holds within him a lot of unresolved anger and heartache. We learn that another brother, River, is dead but McConaghy holds onto that secret as well.

 

Life on the island centers around Dom, whose many skills keep things in working order through improvisation and jerry rigging, but not even he can fix the radios sabotaged by one of the researchers who went berserk. Dom also controls his children’s education and stretches food supplies until naval officers return to the island. Hopefully Rowan’s presence will not exhaust the larder. She was badly injured when her boat wrecked and you can imagine how rudimentary her emergency surgery was. As she recovers Rowan begins to explore the island and helps out. Young Orly takes a shine to her and Dom struggles with his own attraction to her.

 

You could think of Wild Dark Shore as a version of “Survivor” without cameras and lifelines. Dom is sturdy and handy, but he’s not exactly Mr. Empathy–his answer to Raff’s anger is send him up to the lantern room to hit a punching bag–and he’s certainly not attuned to Fen’s heartaches given his inadequacy to grasp his own. Moreover, the waters are rising, storms are growing more fierce, and the beach and island are crumbling away. Staying isn’t an option, but all talk of the future seems more wishful and perfunctory than realistic.

 

Wild Dark Shore plays out in ways that you might anticipate, but solving that mystery might not be the point. Remember that the family surname is Salt, a preservative. In the game of survival, who gets chosen or has the resources to do so? In a tale of secrets, which ones leak out and how do they matter? In many ways, everything in the novel, including its characters, animals, and the island is a metaphor. The concept of rewilding is much discussed, but is the seed bank an unrealistic conceit? As I read this gripping work, I pondered climate change and ghosts. Is this how it all ends?

 

Rob Weir