In the old Scottish tale, a selkie sheds her sealskin to dance on the shore and a man steals it to keep her on land — but her heart stays with the sea. The three McFarland sisters carry the same ache, a pull toward the wild selves they buried. Frances chose the life of the intellect and is on the brink of tenure at an Ivy League university; Lala moves restlessly from lover to lover, chasing a creative life always just out of reach; Eddie pulls pints for fishermen on Roansay, the small island their late mother called home. Reunited in the childhood house at Hogmanay, each has to decide whether to stay captive to the life she built, or reclaim the skin she once shed.
Why it’s here: Sibylline Press — women authors over 50 — and a novel squarely about the reckoning that comes when grown sisters return to their mother’s house and count what they gave up. The selkie’s stolen skin is as good an image as any for a self set aside for decades.
