Read Along: Prologue

‘It was all set in the stars the moment the world began.’

Moira Young’s Blood Red Road doesn’t lull one in gently. Instead, the prologue introduces Saba...by introducing her brother. In her own individual dialect she welcomes the reader to her world by the story of how she came into her world.

‘Lugh got born first...then me...that’s how it’s meant to be’. The relationship between this brother and sister is clearly going to be a focus point of the book’s plot. Saba’s narrative, although her name is not yet revealed, begins with her brother’s name, ‘Lugh’, denoting his importance to her. But there is also seemingly an inferiority Saba feels to her brother; she looks upon him like her role model. The list she gives of their differing physical qualities paints him in a more attractive, positive light whilst she is self-deprecating. This is obviously a character quality that will come into play later in the novel; for Saba to find who she is, away from her brother, and become her own person – someone worthy of the praise she awards Lugh.

There is also a strong theme of fate running through the prologue, even if it is only a few pages long. ‘Because everythin’s set...it was all set in the stars’. Such language can only suggest that something big is coming for Saba and her brother and the notion that it was always meant to happen highlights the significance of the events to come. This is emphasised by Saba’s words about her father, ‘I see the way Pa looks at [us] sometimes...and I wish he’d tell us what he knows’. However, this sense of fate is not the romantic ideal of destiny, instead it appears gritty and negative; it sets up tension and suspense, and most of all – anticipation.

Ultimately, the prologue enters Saba’s world in an unorthodox way; we know little about her, a lot about her brother, nothing about her world, and that something is coming, but not what. It introduces interesting concepts and the feeling that Blood Red Road might be the journey its name promises it to be!

~Ella