On the remote coast of Newfoundland in the 19th century, the Best family ekes out a meager existence. Sennet and his 11-year-old son, Evered, fish for cod, while Sarah and younger daughter Ada tend to the garden and the home. But when their parents die in quick succession, Ada and Evered are left to shift for themselves.

In Michael Crummey’s poetic historical novel --- inspired by a true story --- these two siblings learn to navigate their harsh world, confronting privation, storms and sickness. But the real drama is in their complex, evolving relationship to each other, and in their growing understanding of themselves. Ada and Evered are each other’s entire world, “had all their lives been the one thing the other looked to first and last.” When the novel opens, they have never encountered any person beyond their parents; a baby sister named Martha, who died in infancy; and Mary Oram, the midwife who comes to assist their mother in childbirth.

"Crummey crafts a gripping, heartfelt story out of these dramas both large and small, relying on the unique language of the place and era to transport readers to the past, and into the minds of his characters. The result is a work of both insight and grace."

At first, their bond is one of fond mutual dependence. But as they grow from children to young adults, that relationship is tested in ways both predictable and not, as they begin “to doubt their pairing was requisite to what they might want from life.” And as they learn more about the people and places beyond their cove, they must decide how they will interact with the larger world.

Ada, in particular, is curious about what lies outside of her small sphere of knowledge. When they discover the body of a native woman and child interred in a cave on one of their explorations, she is fascinated. And when visitors arrive seeking timber for a new mast, she develops a friendship with one of the sailors, who shares stories of his journeys to Hawaii, Australia and South America. He maps the world for her on the dirt floor of their house, “moving chairs and table and the water barrel to make room for the expanding atlas.”

The Biblical parallels in THE INNOCENTS are obvious. Ada and Evered are the story’s Adam and Eve, moving from innocence to knowledge, with all that such an education entails. The story of their parents’ relationship, ultimately revealed by some of the sailors who visit their home, “reminded Evered of a story his mother told about a murderous brother from the childhood of creation.” The siblings’ religious education consists of these half-remembered fragments of tales. When the man who buys their cod insists on reading a funeral service for Martha, Evered, who likens the experience to being suffocated, finds himself “holding his breath against the weight of his own ignorance.”

Throughout, Crummey brings to life the rhythmic roughness --- and raw beauty --- of Ada and Evered’s day-to-day lives. Evered fishes “in fog and driving rain and in bald glassy sunshine so fierce it struck at him like a hammer.” When he ventures out to set his traps for fox and otter, he sleeps outside in “the deep dark strangeness of the country, the black amphitheatre of hills topped by a glittering strip of stars.” The sibling’s routine pivots around the twice-yearly visits of The Hope, which collects their haul of fish and leaves them with supplies for the winter. But there are occasional interludes of both pleasure (the annual berry harvest, “a rare episode of plenty in their world”) and terror, as when Ada and Evered discover a ship trapped in the ice, which yields both riches (much-needed warm clothing) and ominous evidence of the fate of the passengers and crew.

Crummey crafts a gripping, heartfelt story out of these dramas both large and small, relying on the unique language of the place and era to transport readers to the past, and into the minds of his characters. The result is a work of both insight and grace. “It was confounding to see the magic and beauty and mystery leach out of a thing, to think it could be used up like a store of winter supplies,” Ada thinks at one point. The magic of THE INNOCENTS never dissipates.