Migrations

Content Warning: This section depicts suicidal ideation and a suicide attempt.

In Greenland, it is the nesting season of the Arctic terns. Very few terns remain; climate change has caused the mass extinction of most of the world’s animals, with even the oceans fished “almost to extinction” (10). Franny Lynch, born Stone, affixes trackers to the legs of three terns and lets them fly away. She visits a pub in Tasiilaq, where she watches a drunk man jump into a fjord. She dives into the freezing water to save him, only to find out that he was not in any danger. Franny retreats to her hotel room and writes a letter to her husband Niall, in which she admits that she hoped the extreme cold would kill her.

The next day, Franny sets out early to search for Ennis Malone, captain of the fishing vessel Saghani. Although she resents the “merciless vessel” for its impact on the environment, she hopes that Malone will take her onboard to follow the migration of the tracked terns. She returns to the Tasiilaq pub in southeastern Greenland; she meets the drunk man again and learns that he is in fact Ennis Malone. Ennis introduces Franny to the crew of the Saghani: Samuel, Anik, Daeshim, Malachi, Léa, and the cook Basil. Despite mounting restrictions on commercial fishing, Ennis is chasing “the white whale” of a massive catch, which would line the pockets of the crew (16). Samuel covertly tells Franny that fishing is Ennis’s life, and that Ennis may not recover when the seas are fished dry.

Franny strikes a deal with Ennis: In exchange for passage on his ship, she will help him find his “Golden Catch.” She tells him she is an ornithologist studying the migratory patterns of the last living terns, which have been abandoned to imminent extinction by most funding bodies. Franny believes the species can still be saved by observing their behaviors and needs. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement, as they will locate any remaining fish in the sea. Privately, Franny thinks that once her own “migration” on the Saghani is finished, she will die by suicide.

The narrative shifts back four years earlier. Franny is alone in a waiting room at the Galway Garda station. A detective enters and says, “they’re dead, Franny” (28).

In different chapters, Franny reminisces on her childhood by the sea in Galway, which gave her a special connection to the ocean. She grew up with just her mother, Iris. Iris was abandoned by her husband Dominic before Franny’s birth, and moved back to Galway when Franny was a baby. As a child, Franny felt out of place and had “itchy feet” which led her to wander past the city limits. She tried to stay put for the sake of her mother, but one day she met a boy who told her a story about a woman who turned into a blackbird. Enthralled, Franny ran away with the boy, joining his family at the seaside. After several days she felt guilty about leaving her mother. She returned home, only to find Iris gone. The reader does not learn yet that her mother died by suicide and that Franny repressed the memory. Franny was sent to live with her paternal grandmother Edith on her farm. The only other time she ever tried to stay put was for her husband Niall.

In the narrative present, Franny works grueling 18-hour days alongside Lèa, maintaining the Saghani’s inner workings. She grows closer to Samuel, a gentle soul who would rather spend his days fishing quietly and reading Keats, but endures the dangers of the Saghani for the sake of his family. Ennis and Franny watch the tracked terns on a laptop in the captain’s room. At night she struggles to sleep and sleepwalks into several dangerous situations. She feels guilty about the fact that the danger makes her feel alive. Franny continues to write to Niall. In one letter she includes a request to “scatter me to the wind” (38).

The narrative shifts to 12 years earlier. After wandering the world for a while, Franny is back in Galway, determined to track down her mother’s whereabouts. She visits the home of her mother’s distant cousins and is moved by the closeness of the family she meets. One of the cousins advises her to look for a John Torpey and a Maire Stone who live in the North.

To pay rent, Franny works as a cleaner at the University of Ireland. She is enraptured by the lecture of Professor Niall Lynch, an ornithologist who teaches a class on the migratory patterns of birds. When Franny first lays eyes on him, he is quoting a passage from Margaret Atwood which begins: “We ate the birds […] all for love, because we loved them” (40). However, when he uses a taxidermized gull as a teaching aid, she panics and runs out of the lecture hall. To Franny, “there is nothing so disturbing as a creature born to flight being bound to dull lifelessness” (43).

Over the next few weeks, Franny runs into Niall several times, including once at the beach. He is birdwatching as a storm comes in. She looks through his binoculars and spots two boys in a flimsy rowboat trapped out in the waves. Franny dives into the water and swims out to the boat, saving the boys. Later that night, Niall shows up at her house with enrollment papers for the university. He says, “you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives together” (69).