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Island in Moonlight, by Kathleen Sully (1970)

Cover of With this, I reach the end of this year’s longest exploration, that into the oeuvre of the utterly forgotten novelist, Kathleen Sully. There is one more of her 17 novels I haven’t read, but the one copy of Not Tonight that was available five months ago has since been snatched up. You have to check WorldCat.org to find a library copy. Mind you, that goes for Island in Moonlight, too.

Island in Moonlight takes Sully further afield than any of her other books. In this case, to a nameless island one presumes is in Greece but which bears only slight resemblance to any actual location. The island was once visited in his youth by Alex Mundle, a successful British businessman. Recently blinded by some unspecified accident (yes, there is no shortage of backstory ellipsis), Mundle has decided to return to the island, which he remembers as some sort of idyllic oasis, and retire from life.

Pell, his chauffeur, who accompanies Mundle to the island, sees it differently:

The place did not look prosperous. It rather reminded me of a middle-west ghost town, and as wind-blown. The faces which peered at us out of the darkness were ghostlike, too — white, dark-eyed and swathed with black shawls.

Arriving in the off-season, they find the only place still serving food is a fly-blown cafe by the harbor front known as Hot Dog Joe’s (a name I’m sure never occurred to any Greek restaurateur). Blind and unable to speak the local language (also unspecified), Mundle still manages to locate a caretaker, a penniless British writer, rents a cold, bare house in the village, and settles down. He spends most of his time teaching himself to play the accordion, but his money quickly earns him some kind of status as the local big man.

His money soon attracts the same kind of attention as a fresh piece of meat on a hot day, and Mundle’s idyll turns pear-shaped. A trio of sharks by the names of Dickie, Mame, and Beth swoops in and performs an efficient scavenging job, leaving Mundle near-broke and homeless. In the end, he is the town joke, earning a few coins playing at Hot Dog Joe’s each night.

I could go into more details. Sully tosses in characters and narrative threads until the book begins to resemble a pile of pick-up sticks. It would take more effort to pull the important ones than is worth the bother. I wish I could say that this, Sully’s penultimate novel, shows her nearing the end of her writing career on an upswing, but I honestly found it something of an aimless mess.

While the story in Dear Wolf, reviewed recently, was frivolous, it at least had some aspirations to form. One reviewer compared Sully to a Sunday painter, and on this particular Sunday, she seems to have been in quite a rush, dabbing her colors onto her canvas without much consideration of proportion or design. I’m not sure what the moral is here: pride goeth before the fall? But I will say that her ability to propel a narrative forward was demonstrated once again. I wasn’t sure where the story was going, but it sure hurtled forward at a mean clip.

I am still intrigued to know more of Sully’s story. What got her started writing — and what led her to stop? What were her influences, or was she entirely self-taught? Where did her polymorphous perspectives on sexuality, the world of the spirit, and social structures come from? What did she think of her early critical success and her slow fade from notice, even as she continued to publish? If anyone can offer a clue to any of this, please contact me.


Island in Moonlight, by Kathleen Sully
London: Peter Davies, 1970

1 thought on “Island in Moonlight, by Kathleen Sully (1970)”

  1. It sounds intriguing, at least… Too bad it’s so difficult to obtain. All of your questions about Sully are good… If you ever hear more about her, there’s at least one person out here who would be interested in hearing all the details…

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