Fire and Ice: a review of “The Mercies” by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

I first came across these verses by Robert Frost at the tender age of twelve and three quarters, as I delved into Eclipse, the third instalment of the Twilight saga. Whatever one may say against Stephanie Meyer’s vampire romances (and there is much one may say), they are full of great literature - Shakespeare, the Brontës, Jane Austen … Bella Swan’s literary tastes led me to many of my favourite authors. Still, I can think of better parallels for Frost’ poem than the angsty love triangle between a teenager, a vampire and a werewolf - such as Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s forthcoming novelThe Mercies.

Set during the 17th century witch trials in Norway, it follows the lives of the women of Vardø, a fishermen’s village deprived of its male population by a terrible storm at sea. Left alone, the women learn to fend for themselves, acquiring in the process a taste for independence, a heady impulse for power which will bring about their downfall. Brilliantly woven into a hunting tale of resentment culminating in disaster, fate and willpower vie for control over the lives of these women. Against the frosty background of physical hardships, hatred and fear, the stories of Maren and Ursula unfold, forged around bonds of friendship, sisterhood and love, brimming with warmth, passion and desire.

As a huge fan of Millwood Hargrave’s novels for children and young adults (The Girl of Ink and St), I would have been waiting for her debut novel on the edge of my seat even if this had not been set in a town with only women and centred on a trial for witchcraft; but with such premises, it is hard to see how it could have disappointed. The Mercies is an instantaneous classic, one of those books that, once you’ve read them, you cannot see how the world did without them for so long. Its characters are compelling, its plot hypnotic, but its beauty derives above all from its atmosphere. Like Frost, Millwood Hargave plays on balance and opposition: between light and darkness, in the long nights of the Norwegian winter and its frozen days of summer, between the coldness of the landscape and the looming shadow of the stake. Her prose has the cadence of poetry, or of a spell. The wilderness of the icy sea is reflected in the women of Vardø, who watched it swallow their men; the smell of the witches’ burning flesh permeates the reader’s mind as it does the skin and clothes of the protagonists.

As external powers - be it of their fathers, of their husbands, or of the unmerciful landscape in which they live - keep destroying their world, lack of control over their own destiny is the real enemy against which all the women in the novel must ultimately fight, and in front of which many will fall. Will Maren and Ursula be among them? The Mercies is out in February, so you’ll find out soon enough (if you know what‘s good for you).