Winner of the Ondaatje Prize 2025, and Wales Book of the Year, the captivating Clear by Carys Davies is one of our favourite recent reads, devoured as a one-sitting treat. Set on a far-flung Scottish island in 1843, it tells the tale of John Ferguson, a man of God, sent to evict Ivar, the island’s last remaining tenant farmer. When an accident upon his arrival leaves John incapacitated, Ivar takes him in and tends him. They share no common language, life experience or world view, but in Davies’ touching story of solitude and human connection, a tentative companionship is born.
The story takes place during the final years of the Highland Clearances, a pitiless episode in Scottish history, whereby landowners expelled tenants from their often long-held family farmlands, to make way for sheep and lucrative crops.
Against this backdrop, Ferguson, a minister currently without parish or income, is paid by a landowner to survey the island for its future prospects and serve Ivar with notice to leave. Described as ‘placid and obedient as an old heifer,’ Ivar isn’t expected to become excitable at the news, but just in case, Ferguson has been supplied with a handy pistol. This thought flickers through his mind when he regains consciousness in Ivar’s little stone house four days after falling from a slippery cliff path. Immobilised by pain and the realisation that all his notes and official paperwork have been rinsed bare by the sea, Ferguson has nothing to aid him in communicating in Ivar’s obscure, almost extinct language.
Davies’ tale spans a month in time, the duration Ferguson must wait before a boat is scheduled to collect him. A convalescence in the company of a voluntary recluse, whose story begins to unfold within the walls of Ivar’s home, which have the same hewn, weather-worn appearance as the man himself. Ivar is sturdy, deliberate, midlife denoted by the patch of grey in his somewhat begrimed beard. He is the first thing Ferguson focuses on upon revival and again in the subsequent days, as Ivar spoon-feeds him porridge or sits in his great chair, knitting or repairing his unexpected guest’s torn clothing.
In one of many wonderfully evocative passages, Ivar sits in his beloved chair, whilst through the opening in the roof above the hearth, light begins to fall in ‘a slowly turning, glittering column of chaff and fish scales and wisps of floating wool.’
As Ferguson begins to recover, his vista widens to take in the fields, cliffs and seashore, a wonderful place of oystercatchers, puffins, heathers and silverweed. He wants to know the words for these in Ivar’s language, wants to actually converse with this curious and unlikely new friend.
The pair embark on a pointing, gesticulating, word-miming experiment and as days go by, a stuttering comprehension emerges. Ferguson is, however, well aware that their time together is running out. He still hasn’t attempted to explain his presence on the island and the boat will be arriving soon to collect them.
Meanwhile, on the mainland, Ferguson’s wife has misgivings she cannot ignore.
An unexpected twist in the tale makes this beautifully written novel linger long after the final page. Highly recommended.
If you like Carys Davies, try out West.
Clear by Carys Davies is published by Granta Books, 160 pages.
