The Maker of Swans
Paraic O’Donnell’s debut novel The Maker of Swans begins with a bang—late one night in front of a decaying English countryside estate, a chase and a shoot-out result in the death of a scorned lover at the hands of the mysterious writer/philanderer, Mr. Crowe, while trying to protect his latest muse, a singer named Arabella. Eustace, the butler/caretaker, is left to clean things up, learning that the man didn’t die from a bullet wound, but from something else, something much more sinister. Endowed with extraordinary powers, Mr. Crowe is a member of a secret society with a rule that states “they may destroy what they themselves have created…They may not destroy what is living.” Mr. Crowe has misused his powers and now must pay.
In a parallel story, Mr. Crowe has a ward named Clara, a mute girl who is given free rein to explore the estate with all its winding passageways and hidden rooms as well as the surrounding grounds. Clara communicates through writing and shares her imaginative prose with Eustace, her sole caretaker and the only one who takes any interest in her. Though latent, Clara also has the mysterious gift. She hears and sees things others don’t, and in an early fascinating scene with her mirror image, Clara makes her own magic when she gives life to a swan.
Much preparation is made by Eustace for Mr. Chastern—a college professor of English by day, in charge of the secret society by night— who envies Mr. Crowe’s wasted talents. He arrives at the estate with his thug, Navaire, to exact punishment for the killing. The punishment is the kidnapping of Clara who will only be returned when Mr. Crowe agrees to use his talent once again and write something coveted by Chastern.
As twisting and turning as the maze on the estate, The Maker of Swans is told in two parts. In the second half we learn Eustace’s backstory, including the loss of his sister and his first love, and how he comes to work for Crowe and care for Clara. It’s in the second half, while imprisoned, Clara recognizes her powers when through her writing, she brings to bloom a rose garden in winter. She is chastised by Mr. Chastern who tells her, “…one is always disquieted when such things happen other than in their natural course,” and her pen and paper are taken away. However, when Chastern returns to the estate leaving Clara in the care of Navaire, she saves herself by scratching secretive prose on the stone wall underneath her bed using a mislaid tie pin, resulting in the illness and death of Navaire, and opening the way for her escape.
Originally published in the UK in 2016, The Maker of Swans by Paraic O’Donnell, made its US debut in 2022. Gothic suspense combined with magical realism, at 361 pages, the story ultimately explores the magic of creating through the written word, how it can be used to build up as well as to destroy.
Visual, mysterious, enchanting, this was a book to savor—on any given page I was struck by the beautiful prose and O’Donnell’s use of language: “Above the orchard, as she passes, colours are seeping into the hem of the sky” and “She is blind now, and deaf also, but discovers things by other senses, by a quiet seeping of pulses.” A writer and poet who lives with his family in Wicklow, Ireland, O’Donnell has a second book called The House on Vesper Sands that I can’t wait to dive into.