A jarring, bloody opening scene launches The Book of I,
a dark, compact, first novel rife with astonishing comical twists by Scottish playwright
David Greig.
The setting is the year 825 at a monastery on the tiny isle
of Iona off the west coast of Scotland. Viking Norsemen raid the island
in search of a silver reliquary said to house the bones of Saint Columba, an Irish Catholic Priest (and later canonized saint) who established the remote religious enclave. The 70 devout
monks who live in humble isolation on the island seem to rejoice at this invasion,
willing and eager to be martyred for Christ in order glorify God—all except for
one monk: Brother Martin resists the pull of glorified eternity and salvation. Amidst
his cowardice, he hides deep in an outhouse—yes, a punishment as fetid as
imagined!
In the aftermath of a particularly gruesome and graphically depicted
battle (readers will shiver at Greig’s detailed literary descriptions
of beheadings and slayings), Brother Martin survives along with, Una, a “handsome
woman,” a beekeeper and medicinal mead maker, who is secretly happy to be
liberated of her ogre, now dead husband. One of the aging, elder Viking leaders,
Grimur, a bombastic brute with a sensitive side, also survives—this after he is
mistakenly taken for dead and buried alive. His “resurrection” certainly doesn’t
make for congeniality among this unlikely trio. However, there lies the great dramatic
irony in Greig’s clever, inventive story that delivers a host of humorous
twists about their survival and ultimate forced camaraderie while also reflecting on
more sobering issues of forgiveness and trust, love and redemption.
Europa Editions, $21.25 hardcover, 9798889661276, 160 pages
Publication Date: September 9, 2025
To order this book on Bookshop.org (formerly Indiebound) link HERE
Link HERE to learn more about dramatist/author David Greig
