In 1958 soon-to-be Northern Irish Prime Minister Terrence O’Neill proposed draining Lough Neagh, (the largest lake in the UK), in order to create a seventh county for the North. O’Neill was widely mocked for his ludicrous idea. In Few and Far Between, Belfast-based writer, Jan Carson’s fourth novel, she imagines an alternative history in which O’Neill’s drainage scheme proceeds, exposing an archipelago of tiny islands in the middle of Lough Neagh, (which really exist). The Neagh Archipelago provides sanctuary for dozens of individuals intimidated out of their homes during the “Troubles,” and at first becomes a kind of haven for people who want to love a different life, who don’t fit in on the mainland. One timeline tells of the growth of this community and the flamboyant social anthropologist, Robert John Connelly, who arrives in the 1970s to document the residents’ lives and becomes something of a guru figure who never leaves.

The second timeline begins in 2017, when the new government proposes to release the dams, and flood the archipelago once more. Most of the families have now abandoned the islands and only a few remain, including Marion and Robert, the now-adult children of RJ Connelly. The island has also become home to ‘sleepers’ and ‘almost deads’, those caught in a hinterland between life and death. Before the dams are destroyed and the floods descend, a second anthropologist is sent to the islands. But there are secrets buried on these islands that no one remaining wants her to discover.