Once Artt obtains permission from the monastery’s Abbott to depart with the two monks, the three enter into a fellowship and begin their voyage by boat down the River Shannon and out into the Atlantic Ocean in search of the untouched island God has intended for them: “If an island’s ever been settled, that means it’s too fertile for us,” Artt declares. Later in the novel, Donoghue reveals what may have prompted them to give up their son, a surprising twist in the story that highlights the hypocrisy of those who piously follow the scripture to the exclusion and harm of their fellow humans. The two companions in question are an old monk, Cormac, who having survived the plague and a crushing blow to the skull, devoted himself to Christ, and Trian, a young monk, “ungainly and odd,” handed over at the age of thirteen by his parents to the monastery where they believed he would be safe. To set out on pilgrimage with two companions, find this island, and found a monastic retreat.”

God has spoken to Artt in a dream, calling him forward to travel from the Cluain Mhic Nóis monastery where he is visiting as a revered guest, to “an island in the sea.” His mission, he believes, is to “withdraw from the world. Who among us doesn’t enjoy the idea of escaping the hectic pace of existence for a faraway, uninhabited island-a haven from life’s challenges and woes? For Artt, the enigmatic scholar and priest at the center of Emma Donoghue’s new novel Haven, set in seventh-century Ireland, the decision to turn his back on the sinful human world and seek refuge from its many temptations is a divine instruction.

Review of haven by emma donoghue