There's bloodshed aplenty when the Vikings go head-to-head with Christians in Scottish playwright David Greig's phenomenal debut historical novel, The Book of I. It's "a good day for a massacre" in the spring of 825 A.D., when Norwegian warrior Grimur arrives on Helgi Gustafsson's "red-sailed wave horse" at the Christian monastery on the small, remote isle of Iona, a "spit of sea, granite, bog and sand." The brutal Vikings are seeking the silver reliquary of Saint Colm's bones.
Their "satanic butchery" leads to the total destruction of the abbey and the slaughter of 70 monks. In fine Grand Guignol fashion, the abbot refuses to disclose the location of the sacred bones and is drawn and quartered between four ponies; in "five, or maybe eight, minutes, it was over." One young monk, Brother Martin, survives in the privy, up to his knees in urine and excrement. Another survivor is the smith's now-widow, Una, who crafts medicinal mead. Helgi's retinue believe that Grimur has been felled and dig a "quick grave," where Martin discovers him later. And in the aftermath, the trinity of Grimur, Martin, and Una explore love, sacred and profane, creating a found family based on faith, redemption, and community.
Summer slides into fall as Grieg's narrative depicts how the unlikely unit adapts to a newly discovered sense of self. Poetic style tinctured with tragicomedy ("What do you call a Viking without a boat?... Dead.") adds buoyancy to the language and elevates sentences with iambic breeziness and imagery. Despite grim material, Greig leavens this extraordinary novel with dark humor and bristling, lyrical prose. --Robert Allen Papinchak, freelance book critic