I have to love when a book goes exactly where you thought it was going from the synopsis, and then goes somewhere you never even considered. Clear is very much that book.
It’s set during the Scottish Clearances of the 19th century, when farmers were shuffled off the land they rented so that the landowners could make more money out of crops or livestock. John, a minister who has quit his church to help find a new one and thus has monetary issues, has been sent by a friend of his brother-in-law to clear a small Northern island (fictional, yet based on either the Orkney or the Shetland Islands) of its lone occupant, Ivar. Shortly after arriving on the island, John falls off a cliff breaking his leg and cracks his head open. Ivar finds him, and not suspecting in the least why a strange man has suddenly appeared on his island, takes him in and nurses him back to health. John struggles to muster the courage to tell Ivar he’s there to evict him, a fact hampered further over the fact that Ivar only speaks Norn, John speaks only English (and I’m assuming Scots Gaelic), and pantomime isn’t really effective for “hey! you’ve got no place to live now!” Meanwhile on the mainland, John’s wife Mary waits not so patiently for her husband’s return.
The writing is dreamy and sometimes hints at events rather than accurately describes them, evoking moods and feelings more than actual images. John, Ivar and Mary are very broadly fleshed out, and sometimes seem to stand more for ideals than actually exist as characters. It helpfully has a glossary in the back of the book for the Norn vocabulary.
I would say read this is you’re a fan of slice of life, a lot happens and yet nothing happens movies, or Art House movies; e.g. A Single Man, Beginners, The Seventh Seal, or Lost In Translation.