The Lost Lights of St Kilda

Product Information

The Lost Lights Of St Kilda is a dual timeline novel of lost love and quite beauty. The locations are 1940’s France and 1927 St Kilda, a grouping of islands off the west coast of Scotland. Days after finishing this deeply moving story, written with such a simple yet lyrical prose, I still feel haunted by it and cannot imagine anyone being able to read it without being similarly affected. This is the first of Elisabeth Gifford’s books I’ve read but with writing of this quality, and her ability to create such unforgettable characters, I now want to read some of her earlier novels. Isobel McDonald is Curator of Social History at Glasgow Museums. Having originally studied archaeology at Edinburgh University, she had expected to go into fieldwork, however a chance conversation with a friend about job opportunities at the British Mu … By the end of the week she’s laughing about how he’s so keen for her to stay on. ‘“Never seen the cows give so much milk,”’ she says, imitating his Morvern accent. ‘“What do you do, Mrs Gillies, to make such a difference?” What does he think?’ she says. ‘I know them each by name. And all of them different.’

The Lost Lights of St Kilda | Elisabeth Gifford - NetGalley The Lost Lights of St Kilda | Elisabeth Gifford - NetGalley

Chrissie - One of the last occupants of the remote island of St. Kilda. Relocated to the Scottish mainland after a disastrous and isolated winter. Allen & Unwin Australia’s leading independent publisher of smart fiction and non-fiction, published in the UK through Atlantic Books. This historical novel is a love story that crosses oceans and decades, portraying two lovers, a desolate island and the power of hope in the face of darkness. What can you tell us about your first memories of discovering that St Kilda existed and then finding out more about the islands? At one level, it is a simple love story: the love between one of the islanders, the young Chrissie Gillies, and Fred, a Cambridge student of geology who visits St Kilda in 1927 during the course of his studies. At another, it is a melancholy ode to a unique landscape and a lyrical lament for a lost way of life.

The Church Times Archive

I would like to thank netgalley Atlantic books corvus for the opportunity to have read the lost lights of St. kilda before publication. Summer 1927: When Fred Lawson takes a summer job on St Kilda, little does he realise that he has joined the last community to ever live on that beautiful, isolated island. Only three years later, St Kilda will be evacuated, the islanders near-dead from starvation. But for Fred, that summer - and the island woman, Chrissie, whom he falls in love with - becomes the very thing that sustains him in the years ahead.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford | Goodreads The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford | Goodreads

In the 1940 timeline, Chrissie recounts her life on the island to her daughter Rachel while Fred talks about his experience there to pass the time while he was a prisoner in a German prison camp. Chrissie now lives on the mainland and listens to the radio every day, desperate for news of Fred. Thoughts of Chrissie are the only thing keeping Fred going as he escapes from his captors and fights his way home. Will he ever see her again?The story moves between time periods effectively. Integrated into the novel are details of life on St. Kilda including religion, values, their language, and survival. The novel included these seamlessly. I learned how both World Wars impacted Scottish soldiers, especially Highlanders who lost their lives in great numbers. One of my favorite episodes involved two Gaelic-speaking soldiers making their way through Spain to attempt to get to safety. They are in the northern Basque-speaking area being hidden by a local family. When the woman of the house hears them speaking Gaelic, she recognizes that like her, they speak a minority (and oppressed) language. This spurs her to do more to see them to safety. As a linguist, and lover of minority languages (I studied Irish for more than 5 years), I found this scene very possible. I have witnessed similar bonds between minority language speakers even when they speak different languages. Aye, and you’d had to leave there for want of food. Well, we’ll give you a trial, Mrs Gillies, see how things go.’ Firstly I have to say how much I love this cover especially after reading the book as it captures the story so perfectly. The reformed 51st in parade kilts The themes of weather and nature on the St Kilda islands are essential to the plot and the characters - how did you research these unique elements of the story?

The Lost Lights of St Kilda | Elisabeth Gifford | Review The Lost Lights of St Kilda | Elisabeth Gifford | Review

I felt sad when I finished it and I feel that this fantastic book will stay with me for a long time. Chrissie Gillies is just nineteen when the researchers come to St Kilda. Hired as their cook, she can't believe they would ever notice her, sophisticated and educated as they are. But she soon develops a cautious friendship with Fred, a friendship that cannot be allowed to develop into anything more... The author’s gradual revelations of the events which led up to this momentous event very effectively captured the islanders’ sense of despair about the loss of their unique way of life, which however unsustainable it had by then become, had nurtured them for generations and was all they knew. She also demonstrated how tourism, whilst providing a source of income for the islanders – from the sale of their homemade tweed and birds’ eggs – also did much to undermine their self-confidence, as the visitors, seeing their simple, unsophisticated way of life and the identical nature of their dress, portraying them as objects of derision and curiosity, almost as though they were exotic exhibits rather than fellow human beings. As a result of all these insights, she enabled me to empathise with the profound sadness of their loss, as well as their fears and anxieties about what the future held for them.Does Chrissie love him too and will the lights of St Kilda shine bright enough to guide him home to her and whatever life she may have made for herself?