Book of I

A dazzlingly fresh take on early medieval life, as funny as it's moving, The Book of I is a wild trip.-Emma Donoghue, author of Room

Scotland, 825: On the shores of the remote isle of Iona, a horde of Norsemen is preparing to make landfall and raid the resident monastery. Inside the church walls, a bevy of ecstatic monks begin to dance, all celebrating their glorious, impending martyrdom. All, that is, except for young Brother Martin, who at the last moment finds a less than desirable place to hide.

When the massacre ends, Brother Martin discovers he is one of three survivors. The others include Una, a beekeeper and mead maker who finds herself now happily widowed, and Grimur, an aging Viking who has clawed his way to the surface of the hasty grave he was left in. As the seasons pass in this feral and lonely setting, their inherent distrust of each other and differing ideologies melt into a complex meditation on the bonds and love between them.

Wildly humorous, poignant, and alive with sharply exquisite truths, The Book of I is an entirely unique novel in which David Greig deftly snaps the barrier between our own time and the past.