Cygnet

April 8, 2019
Butler’s poignant, strange debut imagines a separatist community on an island in the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire. On tiny Swan Island, a 17-year-old known only as “The Kid” has found a tenuous place for herself in a retirement community, whose members call themselves Swans and whom Kid calls the Wrinklies. She was brought here months earlier by her drug-addicted parents, who left her, supposedly for a week or two, with her grandmother Lolly. Lolly has since died, and Kid, disliked by some of the residents and treated as a pet by others, ekes out a living by editing the diaries, videos, and photos of wealthy Mrs. Tyburn so that they reflect the past she would like to have had, one where she had “real breasts, grateful children, a husband whose eyes never wandered.” As Kid, who narrates the novel, approaches her 18th birthday, and erosion caused by storms threatens to topple the house where she lives into the ocean, she must decide whether to stay or go. While Kid often seems younger than her years, and the decidedly slim plot cleaves to the conventions of the coming-of-age novel, Butler has created an appealingly rich world with quirky, flawed characters and a dramatic landscape determined by the constant action of wind and water. Butler delivers a potent and finely calibrated novel.

April 15, 2019
A teenager is left to live in a community of old people on an ocean-ravaged island. A few months ago, 17-year-old Kid's parents left her with her grandmother on Swan Island, off the coast of New Hampshire. They promised to return soon, but now her grandmother is dead and she hasn't heard from her parents at all. To complicate matters, Swan Island is no ordinary place--it's home to a group of elderly separatists (who call themselves Swans) who have left the real world (which they call "The Bad Place") behind. They have chosen to age in peace with as little interaction with the outside world, especially young people, as possible. Kid spends her days re-creating her neighbor's past: retouching photos, rephrasing diary entries, and editing home videos. She spends her nights alone, listening to the violent waves crashing outside her window, except for the first Friday of every month, when Jason, her off-island nonboyfriend, visits. She describes him as "a period, something that happens to my vagina once a month." The longer she stays, the less welcome she is among the Swans, but she's afraid to leave in case her parents return for her. Jumping back and forth between the past and present, the novel sketches out Kid's nomadic, lonely childhood. Butler's writing is sensitive and sharp: "My skin tingles hard, like a violin string, like the surface of a drum," and "All I want is a break from existing, something deeper than sleep." Climate change beats in the background, as incessant as the ocean waves eating away at Swan Island. There's a metaphor to be found in Kid's obsession with the deteriorating island while the Swans remain unfazed. If there's any fault, it's that the novel wraps up a little too quickly, though it ends on a much-needed hopeful note. A unique debut from a promising writer.

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June 14, 2019

DEBUT Butler's first novel is aptly named. Lead character Kid has been stranded on Swan Island, located on New Hampshire's coast, while waiting for her hippie, drug-addled parents to return. Her youthful presence threatens "the Swans," the community of separatist elders who have isolated themselves by moving from the Bad Place, their name for the mainland. After her grandmother's death, Kid's loneliness and melancholy intensify. She grows increasingly desperate to find where she can go and to whom she can turn. The rising seas that daily erode the boundaries of Kid's residence signify the novel's most central theme and are evidence of the looming consequences of climate change. VERDICT Brimming with powerful and sometimes raw emotions, occasional glimmers of hope, and solid descriptive writing and character development, Butler's debut intertwines multiple themes to create a thoughtful coming-of-age story and a young adult's pursuit for adventure in a new locale and the eventual face-to-face dance with mortality, not just the elderly. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 12/3/18.]--Faye Chadwell, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2019
In a strange, separatist community, a young woman comes of age in this beautifully off-kilter debut novel. The narrator, called Kid, was left by her drug-addict parents in the care of her grandmother on Swan Island, a haven for the elderly that escaped the youth-obsessed mainland known as The Bad Place. After her grandmother dies, Kid stays put, and is resented by several of the island's inhabitants and embraced by a few. In what are some of the best, and most disturbing, parts of the novel, Kid spends her days altering photos, diaries, and home movies for Mrs. Tyburn so that they reflect her wished-for past. Slowly realizing her parents probably won't be returning, Kid grapples with what her future will be. The novel takes place in a subtly dystopian today, where the eroding Swan Island represents the possible end of the world. Through excellent writing, Butler has created a wonderfully bizarre, fairly plotless novel filled with quirky characters and a heroine to root for. Readers will want to keep their eyes on Butler.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)