The ways of the bird rising

Abstract

The Ways of the Bird Rising centres on a small Scottish island community threatened by offshore fracking. It takes the idea of “community” in the widest sense, extending its reach to the narrative voices of animals, plants, stones and the island itself in an attempt to evoke the consequences of resource extraction on a more-than-human world. The human story centres on Alana, who grew up on the island and is, with mixed feelings, moving back there after years away; and Comgall, a Canadian geologist who comes to the island as an employee of the company in charge of the fracking. In their own ways, both are reconciling their relationship to the land and to their respective rural homes, while being opened to the lively multi-species world around them—a process mirrored in the reader’s experience as the island’s many inhabitants contribute to narrating their home.