I was 11 years old when I immigrated to Canada. My story begins during the Second World War on Couwael Straat in Rotterdam, Holland. I lived there with my mother, older brother Jacob and Miepie, our cat. My dad was not at home. He was fighting in the war.

My mother did not talk to me about the war while I was growing up in Holland, but I was firmly told that I was not allowed to go outside to play. I have a recollection from when I was about three years old and the Gestapo came to our house. The deportation order was in effect and German soldiers were rounding up Dutch civilian men to work in Germany. Our upstairs neighbour, Mr. Buis, who manufactured window canvas canopies in his workshop above our main floor apartment came to our front door in a state of panic. My mother, sensing the danger he was in, took him to the below-floor coal cellar with a trap door in the back porch. While this was going on, I saw the male neighbour across the way trying to hide in the kitchen. Then this very tall Gestapo official knocked at our front door and asked my mother if she had seen the neighbour he was looking for. My mother kept her cool and said in a very stern voice, “I haven’t seen him.”

A while after the Gestapo left, the neighbour hiding in total darkness in our coal cellar left by the back door into the garden. After the war was over, I visited the neighbour’s workshop above us and he was very happy to see me.

In the “Hunger Winter” of 1944-45, an estimated 25,000 people starved to death in Holland. To spare our family that fate, Mother risked her life during the German curfew to venture outside city limits at night on her bicycle to purchase potatoes from a farmer. Anyone caught outside would be shot on sight. The likewise desperate farmers wanted only gold, watches or jewellery as payment; our need was so great, Mother exchanged her wedding ring for food.

Salvation from Above

In April 1945, when I was four years old, my mom and older brother Jacob were alerted by a neighbour at home. We followed him a couple of blocks to his house bordering a huge park, Kralingse Plas. We looked up and saw hundreds of Lancaster planes flying overhead. The pilots had been instructed to fly 500 feet above ground while dropping their boxes and gunny sacks of food, without parachutes. From that height, none of the supplies were destroyed. The Allied Command had been given permission by the German military beforehand. Gunny sacks contained dried eggs, milk powder, cheese, margarine, dehydrated meat, salt, luncheon meat, tea, chocolate, yeast and white flour, what the Dutch used to bake “Liberation Bread.” Much later I learned that 3.5 million people were saved from starvation throughout Holland in a similar manner. What I remember most is how good that bread baked by my mother tasted with butter spread on top of a slice!

The Canadian Army, our liberators, entered Rotterdam on May 6, 1945. The war had ended! My mother attended a street party celebration on May 7, in front of our house on Couwael Straat. Dad came home soon after. He had pedaled all the way—417 kilometres—on a rickety old bicycle from Braunschweig, Germany. When I first saw him, I did not know who this stranger was standing with my mother in the living room.

I developed rickets sometime during the war, likely because milk was not available and outdoor time in the sun was restricted at best. After the war, my mother took me to see the doctor and he said that the lack of calcium and sunshine were the main reasons I was so pale and skinny to the point that my lower breast bones were deformed.

After the War

By 1949, my health was a lot better. I had become a cheerful nine-year-old Dutch boy, playing street marbles, board games and hide-and-go-seek with my cousins and neighbourhood friends.

In the winter, I skated on a frozen canal behind my grandfather’s house, using wooden skates, with my cousins Jopie, Corrie and Shirley. I also watched American Westerns with my older brother, Jacob, at the movie theatre. Life was fun. Life was good.

It was at this time that my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to live on a farm for a month. My Uncle Jan knew a farmer and his family, and they arranged for me to stay there for the month in August of 1949. Uncle Jan drove us to the farm in his new black Ford car. The first night, I became very stressed living with a strange family. I especially missed my mother, but after awhile, I got used to staying with my foster family. They treated me like a son and fed me plenty of food. My job on the farm was to feed the chickens. When my family came to visit, my mother commented on how healthy I looked.

Land of Advancement

In 1951, my father decided we needed to move to another country, which my mother did not want to do. She came from a large family of nine brothers and sisters, whom she did not want to leave. And why move to an unknown country with a different culture and language we could not speak? My father was experiencing desperate times though, with his Delft’s Blue table lamp business doing very poorly and taxes so incredibly high as Rotterdam tried to rebuild after the devastation. According to my father, we had to move to survive. He chose Canada as our new home, seeing the country as a land of advancement and better income. The decision was made easier given that he already had a sister, Semie, and family living in Montreal.

To prepare for the move he enrolled in English classes, and then one day in the spring of 1951, he boarded a plane and left for Montreal. Surprisingly, my father ended up speaking French once he found a job there, as a painter in a French-speaking factory.

The plan was for my mother, brother and I to follow by ship after he had found a house for us to live in. Once he had, Uncle Jan booked tickets for us to leave for Canada on October 24, 1951.

Moving to Canada meant I had to leave many family and friends behind. A few days before we were to leave, I told my friend, Ton, while walking home that
I was going to live in a new country. When I turned to face him, he had vanished from my side. Simply gone. No goodbye, no handshake. But one of the saddest parts of all was leaving Miepie my cat behind, too. Even the most loved of family pets were not allowed on board the ship that took us to our new lives in Canada.

Read Johannes’s account of his family’s reunion in Canada.

Risk Factors for Liver Cancer

While still rare at approximately 3,500 new cases each year, liver cancer is one of the fastest rising cancers in the country.

The biggest risk factor for liver cancer is a chronic hepatitis B or C infection. The hepatitis B virus (HBV) can be transmitted through blood, semen, vaginal fluids or saliva; hepatitis C (HCV) is spread by blood-to-blood contact. About 600,000 Canadians are infected with HBV alone, and many are unaware of their condition.

As a general rule, hepatitis infections aren’t a great source of worry for Canadians. The symptoms are often minor or non-existent, and in many cases they clear up without treatment. However, some people’s immune systems don’t succeed in fighting off hepatitis. Unless these “chronic carriers” get treated, they become higher-risk targets for liver cancer. HBV and HCV inflame the liver, which can lead to advanced scarring-known as cirrhosis. When the liver sets out to repair these scars, it begins regenerating cells; more regenerated cells means a greater chance that one of them might mutate and cause cancer.

Because primary liver cancer doesn’t usually show symptoms until it’s too late for effective treatment, it has an abysmal survival rate. Only one in five people diagnosed with it will survive for the next five years. (Learn how to spot the silent signs of liver cancer.)

Liver Cancer Prevention

To prevent liver cancer, the Canadian Liver Foundation has urged all adults born between 1945 and 1975 to get a hepatitis C blood test. An HBV vaccine was introduced for Canadian children in the 1990s. There is no HCV vaccine, but researchers hope to develop one. Until then, let’s roll up our sleeves for testing and add a decreasing liver cancer rate to our list of wins.

If you do test positive for hepatitis, don’t panic. Catching, treating and monitoring it reduces your chances of complications, including liver cancer.

Another leading risk factor for liver cancer is heavy alcohol consumption, because like hepatitis, it scars the liver tissue. Heavy drinking, defined as having five or more drinks on a single occasion, is relatively common among Canadians. 

Here are more signs your liver might be in trouble.

If you’re in the habit of driving distracted and all you get is a ticket, consider yourself lucky. Every year more than 1.25 million people die in road crashes, and between 20 and 50 million more get injured, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and the group names distracted driving as one of the top two causes of accidents. Now, Norwegian researchers have found the types of personalities most likely to take this kind of risk.

“Drivers using mobile phones are approximately four times more likely to be involved in a crash than drivers not using a mobile phone,” the WHO reports. “Using a phone while driving slows reaction times (notably braking reaction time, but also reaction to traffic signals), and makes it difficult to keep in the correct lane, and to keep the correct following distances.” (Take these steps to stop texting and driving.)

Yet there has been little research into distracted driving, observed transportation researchers Ole Jørgen Johansson and Aslak Fyhri in an academic paper published in the journal, Frontiers in Psychology. Figuring out who is most likely to engage in distracted driving is a crucial first step in developing effective interventions that will reduce distracted driving, they say. Johansson and Fyhri set out to identify the demographics, attitudes, intentions, and personality traits common among those who engage in distracted driving.

The researchers administered a survey to 1,500 Norwegian teens and young adults; after crunching the numbers, the researchers discovered that the greatest predictors for distracted driving are age and gender, with young men most likely to report distraction. They found six types of people are most likely to drive distracted:

• young men
• people who drive often
• neurotic people
• extroverted people
• people who feel driving distracted is socially acceptable
• people who feel driving distracted is beyond their control

Although the researchers were not able to identify an effective intervention that would target all these groups, the findings lead them to believe that “simply being exposed to material about distracted driving” may go a long way toward that goal. Accordingly, Johansson and Fyhri say that future research should focus on novel intervention techniques as well as other measures to predict distractability.

Next, find out 10 things you’re doing in your car (but shouldn’t).

Most people don’t keep a set of mechanic’s tools in their trunk. So when your car won’t start, leaving you stranded with a dead engine, you feel pretty helpless. But don’t give up right away. We’ve compiled a list of tricks you can try, and none of them require tools. They’re arranged by symptom, and you’ve got nothing to lose by trying them. Of course, they won’t fix the root problem, but one of them just might get the engine started so you can head to the nearest mechanic to have the problem fixed.

Symptom: The car won’t start, but the starter goes “click”

If the car clicks when trying to start, but still won’t start, this can be caused by a weak battery, dirty battery terminals, a worn starter motor or a stuck solenoid. If might just need a jump start, but there are a few tricks to try before breaking out the jumper cables or electric jump starter.

Try cycling the key: Turn on the dome light and watch it while you try to start the engine. If the light goes out, it’s a sign the battery is really weak—almost dead. To heat up the battery, terminals and starter, try the “key cycling” trick. The trick is to turn the key to the start position repeatedly about 10 times in a row. Stop and wait five minutes. Then try to start the engine. But if the dome light stayed bright when you turned the key, move on to the next trick.

Try tapping on the battery terminals: There’s no way to clean corroded battery terminals when you’re stranded without tools. But you can try to move or at least jar the terminals enough to make better contact. Smack each battery terminal with the heel of a shoe to rotate it slightly around the battery post if the car will not start. Then try starting the engine. (Here are more ways to extend the life of your car battery.)

Try tapping the starter: If you have access to the starter motor, try hitting it with the tire iron from your car jack. Sometimes, the electrical contacts get stuck and can be freed by tapping on them.

Symptom: The car won’t start, and there’s no click when you turn the key

Try shifting the shifter:With your foot on the brake, move the shift lever to the neutral position and try starting the engine. If that doesn’t work, move it back to park and try it again. Moving the shifter sometimes reestablishes electrical contact inside the transmission range selector (also known as the neutral safety switch).

Symptom: The engine cranks, but won’t fire up

Try swapping relays: With the radio off, turn the key to the run position and listen for a two-second buzzing sound. That’s the fuel pump priming the injection system. If you don’t hear any sound, the fuel pump relay may be bad or the pump may be on its last legs. First, find the location of the fuel pump relay in your owner’s manual or on the legend for the under-hood fuse box cover. Yank the fuel pump relay straight up. Then locate another relay with the same part number and swap it with the fuel pump. Push it straight into the socket. Try starting the engine afterward.

Try unflooding a flooded engine: If you smell gas, the engine is flooded. Press the accelerator pedal to the floor and hold it there while you crank the engine.

Try tricking the computer: A vacuum leak or funky temperature sensor can result in an air/fuel mixture that’s too lean to start a cold engine. If you’ve tried all the other tricks shown here and it still won’t start, press the accelerator halfway and try to start the engine. That’ll tell the computer to add more fuel.

Now that you know what to do when your car won’t start, find out what these strange car sounds could mean.

This 1960 Ford station wagon was a part of our family

I’ll always remember my dad’s favourite car back when we were kids in the ’60s. There were five of us, so a 1960 Ford station wagon was the ideal car to own back then! I can remember many adventures us kids had in that station wagon. Seat belts weren’t mandatory then, so we had the pleasure of jumping around in the back, which of course drove Mom and Dad crazy!

Whether you booked a rental car for your vacation or are hailing an Uber home after a night out with friends, it’s tempting to plug your dying phone into your rideshare or rental car’s USB port to charge. However, charging your smartphone in a car that isn’t your own could be disastrous.

First of all, you should never plug your phone into a public USB port, and that includes rental cars and essentially any cars that you don’t own. “The USB cable and outlet are designed not only to charge the connected device, but they are also designed for two-way data transfer,” John Burkhauser, an auto repair specialist and director of educational programs at Bolt On Technology, tells Reader’s Digest. “When the phone is plugged into the active outlet, usually located at the front of the vehicle, both the phone and the vehicle systems will talk to each other.” Translation? Using that USB port can transfer information from your phone to the car, and the car can store private information from your phone.

“Most everything you do with the phone and the vehicle systems will be stored in the vehicle’s memory,” says Burkhauser. “Your music list, text numbers, the addresses you looked for using GPS, and more. When you disconnect, you leave all this information behind. This can be accessed by anyone who uses the vehicle after you.”

Thomas Piippo, mechanical division director for the Automotive Service Association and owner of Tri-County Motors in Rudyard, Michigan, agrees. “Often (almost always) the USB port is connected to the car’s infotainment system and it may download your personal information into the car’s system,” says Piippo.

And, like Burkhauser stated, it’s not enough to just disconnect your phone at the end of your rental car experience because of the data you might have left behind. “Unless you delete that data before you return the car, other people may view it, including future renters and rental car employees or even hackers,” Lisa Weintraub Schifferle, an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission in the Division of Consumer and Business Education, writes on the FTC’s blog.

If you absolutely have to plug into a USB port in a car, Schifferle recommends using the cigarette lighter to check your permissions and to make sure that before you return the rental car you delete any data that could be stored in the infotainment systems. There’s also a device called a USB data blocker, which helps prevent syncing and the transfer of information between the two points, that you plug into the USB port first.

If you’re tech-savvy and car-savvy, then you’ll probably know how to delete information yourself. “You can choose to connect to rental vehicles if you know how to erase your information from the system when done,” says Burkhauser. “Some vehicles will allow you to navigate through the menu and delete your phone from the system. Other systems can be erased by doing a system reset, but you’d have to know how to do this to make it work.”

Smartphones, like baby monitors, thermostats, and even pacemakers are some of the everyday objects that can be hacked. But it’s your job to be vigilant and know how to protect yourself. “A good alternative way to recharge your phone on the go is to use a portable battery, one about the size of a cell phone,” says Piippo.

Next, find out the cybersecurity secrets hackers don’t want you to know.

Windshield wipers are vital pieces of safety equipment. But like many vehicle parts, we often forget they’re there until they stop working properly.

If you’ve ever experienced the ear-splitting, high-pitched squeaking noise wipers sometimes make when they drag across your windshield, you know how annoying it can be. Luckily, the solutions are usually simple. Learn the four most common causes of squeaky windshield wipers so you’ll know what to do next time yours start making a ruckus.

Dirty Glass

Believe it or not, dirty glass is by far the most common cause of squeaky windshield wipers. Small particles of dirt, sand or road salt sprinkled across the glass can cause friction when the wipers pass over, leading to the unwanted squeaking.

Give your windshield a thorough wash and rinse, then try the wipers again. Chances are the noise will be at least greatly diminished. (These pro car washing tips will come in handy.)

Dirty Blades

While dirt and debris often build up on the windshield, wiper blades can collect it, too. If you’ve cleaned your windshield and the squeaking is still happening, lift your wipers and examine the rubber squeegees closely. If you notice a buildup of dirt, wash them thoroughly. Use a toothbrush to remove dirt from all the nooks and crannies along the blade.

Even if you don’t see any dirt on the blades, the rubber squeegees may still be coated with protective oil from the factory, especially if your wipers are new. Like dirt and debris, this oil can cause squeaking. Remove it by cleaning your wipers carefully with rubbing alcohol. (Here are more genius uses for rubbing alcohol.)

Failing Wipers

If your wiper blades and windshield are perfectly clean but squeaking persists, there may be a structural issue with the wipers.

Check the rubber squeegees first. Over time, they become hard and brittle, losing their ability to flex as they move across the windshield. Brittle wiper squeegees won’t wipe well and will almost certainly squeak. Buy and install new squeegees and the squeaking will probably disappear. (Here’s how to replace wiper blades, step by step.)

If the squeegees are in good shape, the wiper mechanism itself may be failing and need mechanical work.

Dry Wiping

Even if nothing’s wrong with your wipers, they’ll probably squeak if you use them on a dry windshield.

If your wipers are in good shape and you notice squeaking, take a second to evaluate the weather conditions. Is there just a light sprinkling of rain on your windshield? If so, there’s probably insufficient moisture to lubricate your wipers as they move. Squirt some washer fluid onto your windshield and chances are the squeaking problem will be solved.

Next, check out nine more strange car sounds—and what they could mean.

“Attention passengers,” a voice boomed out over the PA system. “In a few moments, we’ll be passing by a raft of sea otters on our port side.” I ran to the wrong side of the boat, but realizing my mistake, immediately joined the other 20 or so passengers already looking out at the sea otters. I was really excited because I had never seen a sea otter before. Once abundant all along Canada’s western coastline, sea otters were over-hunted by the fur trade starting in the early 1800s. They have since been reintroduced here and are making a remarkable comeback, although they are still listed as a “threatened” species.

Cruising Vancouver Island’s West Coast

I was on board the MV Uchuck III, a 136- foot converted American minesweeper. Built in 1942, with a wooden hull of double-planked, three-inch-thick fir, she is now based in Gold River, B.C., on Vancouver Island’s west coast. Totally refitted to take up to 70 tons of freight, she can also accommodate 100 passengers. The Uchuck III makes regularly scheduled runs to a variety of small ports, and delivers supplies to otherwise inaccessible settlements and camps along her route. As well, she will drop off kayakers as needed, by hoisting them out over open water and then gently lowering the kayak, with the kayaker inside, to the water below. A crew member explained to me that this was referred to as a wet launch. Several of the passengers disembarked this way when we stopped at a sheltered location for them. They were to be picked up in a week’s time when the boat did its next scheduled run.

Even though this part of our journey was on a boat, I was actually on a road trip with my buddy, Gar. He and I had left our homes in Saanichton on Vancouver Island the day before and driven north to Campbell River, and then west for a couple of hours, arriving at our motel in Gold River at dinnertime. The previous year, we had driven to Alaska on an epic three-week trip, but now wanted to stay closer to home and not have to drive too much. This short trip was perfect.

We boarded the Uchuck III at 7 a.m. at the dock, after having a quick breakfast in town. The other passengers were all hardy types with sturdy shoes, waterproof anoraks and binoculars. We then headed out on the Thursday morning excursion, motoring at a steady pace of about 12 knots. Our route was largely in the sheltered waters of Muchalat, Tahsis and Esperanza Inlets. We stopped at one then another of the fish farms that call these waters home. Logging camps and fishing lodges came and went, some we stopped at and others we saw from a distance. We dropped off food, commercial supplies and assorted heavy equipment. In exchange, we took aboard several bright-green garbage dumpsters to be later unloaded and disposed of in Gold River.

In the late afternoon we ventured onto the open waters that the nautical charts described as the Rolling Roadstead. I popped a pill to make sure that I wouldn’t suffer a bout of seasickness.

Arrival at Kyuquot

At around 6 p.m. we arrived at the little settlement of Kyuquot—pronounced ky-YOO-kit. A pair of eagles swooped overhead and this was taken as a good sign by the birdwatchers among us. Our arrival was met by the entire village standing on the little dock welcoming us. As there was no passenger accommodation aboard ship, we were all divided up and taken to small lodgings in the area. There is no hotel, so Gar and I were led to a fishing lodge where we were assigned to very basic camp-style accommodations, each room with a single bed and small adjacent washroom.

For dinner that night, the passengers walked along a shoreline trail to a wooden building that served as the community restaurant. There was a large trestle table set up for us, with bowls and plates of steaming roast pork, chicken and vegetables. It was all home-style, very informal and delicious.

The next morning, we reboarded the Uchuck III and were treated to breakfast aboard, prepared in the ship’s small galley. We took the same route back to Gold River, keeping a lookout for telltale signs of whales. With a few stops along the way, we docked at 6:30 p.m. What a fantastic couple of days it had been. I would take this trip again in a heartbeat!

Inspired to explore Vancouver Island’s west coast? Don’t miss these hidden gems of B.C.

Approximately 374,000 Canadians aged 16 and older live with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) every day—and you, a family member or a friend might even be one of them. RA is an autoimmune disease where the body’s immune system begins attacking the lining of the joints (and even other tissues), causing swelling, pain and stiffness. Especially early on, there may even be less obvious symptoms like tiredness, low-grade fever and weight loss. The disease is progressive and irreversible—but remission can and should be a treatment goal you discuss with your rheumatologist. And it starts with having an open, honest relationship with your rheumatologist.

Unlike the traditional definition of remission in oncology, remission in RA is when you have a meaningful period of time with little to no symptoms. It’s something worth striving for, because doing “just OK” isn’t good enough. Make the move toward remission—or help a loved one on their journey—with these three steps:

1. Take stock of the ways rheumatoid arthritis affects your life.

If your response to the question “how are you feeling?” is “bad” or “okay” or “so-so,” it’s time to take a fresh assessment of your symptoms and the specific ways they’re affecting your life.

First, answer a few questions:

• How often do you have flares? (episodes of sore and swollen joints that occur from time-to-time)
• What are the symptoms?
• How severe are they? (e.g. on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 = not at all and 10 = very severe)
• What activities do they impact?
• How does each flare leave you feeling emotionally? (e.g. worried, frustrated, angry, self-conscious)

You’ll probably need to track your RA symptoms in a diary or on a calendar for several weeks so you can get a full picture. Be as specific as you can.

You can also take this survey to get a better sense of the impact RA has on your day-to-day life.

2. Envision your goals for the future—without the limitations of rheumatoid arthritis.

If you had your RA symptoms under control, how would your life improve? What would you be able to do differently?

Think about small ways your day-to-day activities would change:

• I would attend and be able to sit through my child’s entire hockey game.
• I would sleep through the night.
• I would carry groceries into the house on my own.
• I would spend a late night out with my friends.

In collaboration with your rheumatologist, you can even come up with some bigger goals, too.

3. Have an honest conversation with your physician.

It’s time to speak up! Once you’ve gathered information about your symptoms, all the ways they impact your daily life and what goals you have for the future, bring them to the attention of your rheumatologist. That way, they’ll be able to create a treatment plan that’s unique to you and your experience with RA. You’ll also both develop a target to work toward when it comes to remission.

You can fill out this discussion guide prior to your appointment so you don’t forget any important points.

Ready to take control of your rheumatoid arthritis? Visit talkoverra.com for more info and discover more experiences like yours with the hashtag #TalkOverRA.

Emma Donoghue is one of Canada’s top literary shapeshifters. She’s written Dickensian Victorian sagas, shimmering fairy tale retellings and heart-pulsing historical mysteries. But Donoghue is at her finest when she does away with all that epic window dressing. Her best—and bestselling—novel is, of course, Room, about a young woman and her five-year-old son who are held hostage for years in an 11-by-11-foot shack by the mother’s kidnapper and rapist. In a setting so spartan, Donoghue forces herself to find new terrain, plumbing her characters’ relationships, needs and fears to create a psychological thriller that manages to be harrowing and hopeful all at once.

Somehow, Donoghue conjures the same magic with her latest novel, Haven. Set in seventh-century Ireland, it chronicles the journey of two monks and a scholar-priest to find and settle the real-life island that would come to be known as Skellig Michael—a craggy peak jutting out of the North Atlantic that’s been home to monasteries for at least 1,500 years. On the surface, this novel couldn’t be more different than Room: it’s historical rather than contemporary, sweeping instead of cramped, a journey as opposed to a confinement. But Donoghue is using the same tool kit in both books: the horrors of isolation, the desperation to survive, the power to save or destroy another human being.

When the novel opens, the three main characters are dining together at Cluain Mhic Nóis, a monastery in what is now County Offaly in central Ireland. There’s Trian, a strapping young rookie monk whose farming family sent him to the abbey as a child. There’s Cormac, middle-aged and weary, who took his holy orders after his family died of plague. And finally there’s Artt, a visiting priest who dreams one night that he and the other two men will embark on a journey to establish a new monastery on an uninhabited island, cloistered far away from the sin and indulgence of human society. First, Artt demands the brothers swear an oath of unquestioning obedience to him, trusting in his learnedness, his force of personality and his relationship with God. Then they embark down the River Shannon in a boat made from a dozen ox hides, with only one spare set of clothes for them to share and some meagre food and water rations.

Donoghue sends readers down a gripping garden path. At first, the book appears to be a tale of man versus nature: the brothers contend with torrential storms, learn to hunt and forage in the river and on its banks and, after Artt has yet another vision from God, settle on the barren island, which is inhospitable to any life except for thousands of screeching orange-beaked razorbills. As the novel progresses, it becomes clearer that it’s actually about something far more dangerous than the hostile wilderness: the cultish devotion to a charismatic leader.

In Artt, Donoghue has created a deliciously loathsome villain. He’s pathologically convinced of his own superiority, even though Trian knows more about navigating the sea and Cormac has a way with herbs and medicine. Like any cult leader, he belittles and undermines his followers, starves them into submission and leads them into treacherous territory on the basis of his supposed communion with God. Somehow, Donoghue has turned a novel about Dark Age monks into something terrifyingly modern. In a different time and place, Artt could be a Scientology guru, an Instagram influencer or Donald Trump. And he turns out to be a hell of a lot scarier than a barren island in the middle of nowhere.

Next, check out 10 Indigenous authors you should be reading.