Eynhallow by Tim McGregor
A respectful, moving and classy origins tale on the ‘Bride of Frankenstein’
In recent years Tim McGregor has been on a fine run of form, consistently releasing high quality and widely varied weird fiction. His magnificent Wasps in the Ice Cream (2023) was one of my favourites novels of the last year and you are unlikely to read many better coming-of-age small-town unsettling horror stories. Wasps is backed up by two excellent recent novellas Lure (2022) and the fantastic Taboo in Four Colours, a standalone release in the My Dark Library collection from Cemetery Gates Media.
McGregor has never been one to retread the same ground and Eynhallow by Tim McGregor, released by Raw Dog Screaming Press, edges his work into both historical fiction and an unlikely ‘origins’ story. By way of comparison, the Star Wars film Rogue One concerns the resistance fighters brave battle to obtain the blueprints, at any cost, to destroy the Death Star and is entirely based upon a couple of lines of dialogue in Star Wars: A New Hope. Eynhallow does something similar, and with great style and respect, to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
However, Eynhallow is not quite an origins story, as the entire novel takes place after Frankenstein has created his monster and is researching making him a mate. The Shelley novel does not give any detail of how this transpires, all is suggested, however, it does reveal Frankenstein heads to the Orkney Islands, off the coast of northern Scotland, where McGregor’s entire novel is set. The particular island is never named in Frankenstein, with McGregor choosing the tiny and desolate Eynhallow as his location. Set in 1797, at the time the island was home to around twenty people from a handful of families. In reality, this tiny island has been uninhabited since the 1850s and is notoriously difficult to visit due to dangerous tides.
Not a word is wasted in this gripping and very moving 174-page short novel which is built around a study of Agnes Tulloch, her husband Robert and gaggle of children who struggle to survive on an island which is under constant attack from both wind and rain. McGregor does an outstanding job of highlighting the harshness and fragility of life, that they are two meal away from starvation and forever at the mercy of nature, the perils of childbirth, or perhaps God himself. I hail from the Northeast Coast of mainland Scotland and the author’s impression of my homeland, rain, sleet, mist and rain, which visitors often find to be bleak, is beautifully described.
Agnes comes from Kirkwall (the largest town on the Orkney Isles) and because of this is treated as an outsider by some of the other inhabitants of Eynhallow, who can dip into their own strong dialect should they wish to exclude her from their conversation. However, it is her size and sheer physical presence which marks Agnes out as different, she is significantly taller than her husband and when drunk allows him to beat her, when in reality she could easily overpower him. However, she knows her place and the family dynamics and domestic role of women play an important part in the plot.
The novel’s narrative is written entirely in the first person from Agres’s perspective and it is revealed she can read and write, has taught her children their letters, and dreams of one day leaving her bleak island home. She is forever fearful of her drunken husband getting her pregnant again, realising they would not be able to feed a fifth child. The families fish to survive, eat dried seaweed and the relationship between mother and children was convincing, particularly with their eldest daughter Grace who helped with the younger three children and friendly family goat.
Eynhallow rarely has visitors and when a stranger arrives to rent the dilapidated (some say cursed) empty cottage the story takes shape. Sensing easy money Robert Tulloch lines up his wife as cook and cleaner to the new occupant, Mr Victor Frankenstein. Initially keeping her distance, Agnes begins to thaw towards Victor and the two begin to chat, with him fascinated by her physical presence and her the faraway lands he has visited.
It is not necessary to say anymore of the plot except this sad, melancholic, and compassionate story fitted perfectly into the Frankenstein mythology. It did not pull any punches; Agnes is a tragic character and I also found myself drawn to the plight of her children and what she had to lose. First and foremost this is a book about Agnes Tulloch and what she becomes, it is not about Victor Frankenstein, even if his motives are obvious from the start. You might guess how events are going to play out, the ending of Eynhallow was superb, with the sad final time jump, and this beautiful short novel is a clever addition to the mystique which still surrounds Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein.
Eynhallow by Tim McGregor
ORKNEY ISLANDS, 1797 – Agnes Tulloch feels a little cheated. This windswept place is not the island paradise her husband promised it to be when they wed. Now with four young children, she struggles to provide for her family while her husband grows increasingly distant.
When a stranger comes ashore to rent an abandoned cottage, Agnes and the other islanders are abuzz with curiosity. Who is this wealthy foreigner and why on earth would he come to Eynhallow? Her curiosity is soon replaced with vexation when her husband hires her out as cook and washerwoman, leaving Agnes with no say in the matter. Agnes begrudgingly befriends this aristocrat-in-exile; a mercurial scientist who toils night and day on some secret pursuit. Despite herself, she’s drawn to his dark, brooding charm. And who is this Byronic stranger sweeping Agnes off her feet? His name is Frankenstein and he’s come to this remote isle to fulfill a monstrous obligation.
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