Marrow Island

Image of Marrow Island
Author(s): 
Release Date: 
June 6, 2016
Publisher/Imprint: 
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages: 
256
Reviewed by: 

Another entry in the growing genre of eco-fiction, Marrow Island by Alexis M. Smith tells a story of loss, grief, and attempts to heal both a damaged woman and a damaged land.

Lucie Bowen returns to her childhood home on Orwell Island in the San Juan Islands off the coast of the Pacific Northwest 20 years after an earthquake destroyed the refinery on neighboring Marrow Island, killing several workers including her father. Lucie has never recovered from her father’s loss, principally because his body was never recovered. “There was no interment, just a headstone on soil, waiting.”

Lucie and her childhood friend Katie spent days on Marrow Island searching for his remains unaware of the health risks presented by the deadly chemicals and heavy metals released when the refinery exploded during the earthquake. “We had pulled our shirts over our noses to filter the air, thick with sea rot and animal rot, mixed with the eye-glazing fumes of the chemical dispersants they had eventually used on the oil slicks around Marrow.”

Lucie’s search ends when she and her mother flee to Seattle to escape the earthquake’s devastation where Lucie becomes a journalist who is known for her articles on environmental issues. A painful breakup with a radical environmentalist boyfriend leaves her wounded in spirit and barely able to earn enough money from her freelance articles to support herself. Accepting the deed to her childhood home from her mother, she returns to Orwell Island to recover from her broken love affair and to finally come to terms with her father’s death.

Another reason for her decision to return to Orwell is a letter from Katie whom she has not seen nor heard from for years. Katie is living on a commune on Marrow Island. “I closed my eyes and tried to draw the image out of my memory: beyond the shore, at the distance of about twelve nautical miles lay Marrow Island . . . where my father and eight other men were burnt to death after the earthquake.”

Before meeting Katie on Marrow Island, Lucie investigates Rookwood, the home of Jacob Swenson, her nearest and very wealthy neighbor. A light is burning in a second floor window both day and night, Jacob’s car is in the garage, yet no one answers the door. Giving in to curiosity Lucie explores the old house and finds a partially packed suitcase and signs of a struggle. She calls the village police who begin a search but find no trace of the eccentric man.

Feeling uneasy about Jacob’s disappearance, Lucie nevertheless travels to Marrow Island, location of the mysterious commune, Marrow Colony, where Katie now lives. Lucie has researched the Colony, but has been able to find almost nothing about the commune except that they discourage campers and are known for their lavender goat cheese. Carey McCoy, a park ranger, accompanies her to the island where he will survey Fort Union, a state park which has been abandoned since the earthquake.

Katie is both familiar yet different. “She seemed . . . worn . . . patches of dirt and holes here and there in her clothes, weathered hands.” When Lucie introduces her to Carey “Her smile never disappeared, but there was a wariness in her eyes.” Katie insists on introducing Lucie and Carey to Sister J., a former nun who is the leader of the Colony. “Sister J. looked at us intently, this small, compact woman, with alert blue eyes and large, stained, crooked teeth offered in a narrow smile.”

The Colony is committed to healing Marrow Island by planting several varieties of mushrooms, which they claim breakdown the deadly chemicals and other pollutants left over from the refinery explosion. It seems to be working since much of the island seems to have recovered from the devastation. But Lucie witnesses rituals that leave her uneasy when a member of the commune dies. Then when she discovers an unburied body in an abandoned shed, she learns that delving into the secrets of Marrow Colony carries a deadly price.

Marrow Island is a story told in lyrical prose that is both atmospheric and haunting. Smith obviously feels deeply about unwitting damage done to the environment by reckless industrialization and technological advances, but the suspense and excitement one might expect in a story of the conflict between environmentalists and industry is lacking. Instead the conflict is told in very personal terms and asks the question of how far would—or should—an individual go to heal the earth, and if human life should be sacrificed in the effort.