The Librarian’s Cellar: Eoin McNamee reviews ‘The Loney’ by Andrew Michael Hurley

In this series of guest reviews, Eoin McNamee reviews The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley

It could be Bunyan. A small group of men and women sets out into the wilderness – in this case the untracked tidal flats of the Loney and its rank hinterland. They see themselves as pilgrims, God-haunted. They are in search of an old conformity, the stark rites of the early church. A test of their piety will be a cure for one of their number, the dumbstruck teenager Hannay.

It is the 20th century, but th...