novel Devils Island. Her writing has appeared in TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times magazine, Chicago Tribune, Poets & Writers, and many other publications. Raymond has taught at Boston University, Boston’s Grub Street Writers, Seattle’s Hugo House, and San Diego Writers, Ink. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she is co-founder of the boutique publisher Ashland Creek Press.
Raymond applied the Page 69 Test to Floreana and reported the following:
On page 69, Mallory, a scientist who has just returned to fieldwork after a decade away, is getting ready for an evening with unexpected visitors to Floreana Island after she has spent a long day in the equatorial heat building penguin nests. Here are the first two paragraphs on the page:Learn more about the author and her work at Midge Raymond's website.I take a cool shower and put on a loose white blouse and a long cotton skirt that will give my arms and legs a reprieve from the bug spray, though I still have to spray the backs of my hands, my wrists, my feet and ankles. I soak my palm and pat the repellent onto my cheeks, forehead, and neck.This page doesn’t capture the novel as a whole because Floreana has two narratives—the re-imagined story of Dore Strauch, inspired by a real woman who settled on the island in the 1930s and got caught up in the mysterious disappearance of other settlers, and the contemporary story of Mallory, a penguin researcher who has returned to the field after leaving science behind to start a family.
I tie my wet hair back and, in the tiny bathroom mirror, take in my florid face, drooping eyes. I’ve avoided mirrors for months, though I have to admit that donning a skirt has as much to do with being seen next to Callie as avoiding bug spray. It feels indulgent to care what I look like—almost like a betrayal, if I let myself think of Scott and Emily—but I’m relieved to see the mirror’s reflection is not quite as bad as I thought. In the equatorial light, flecks of gold emerge from the brown of my eyes, and, thanks to the sun, my normally brown hair is sprayed with highlights.
This scene does capture a few key aspects of Mallory’s story: the complicated feelings about her husband, daughter, and what she left behind as well as what she risks by returning to the island; and her awareness of her age and the time that has slipped away since she last worked in penguin conservation. But Floreana isn’t complete without the narrative of Dore Strauch, a character inspired by a real woman who lived on Floreana and was part of a scandal in the 1930s. Only by reading both narratives can readers see how the two women struggle, despite being a century apart, with their identities and with love and family and what it means to them—and especially how they each dreamed of escape on Floreana, only to find the island was, in fact, the very place that forced them to confront their deepest, darkest desires and fears.
The Page 69 Test: My Last Continent.
Writers Read: Midge Raymond (June 2016).
--Marshal Zeringue
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