Cynthia McVay: "Under the Crucian Sun: A Memoir of Place"
Jun 28th 2026
Events @ Labyrinth Books
In Under the Crucian Sun, environmentalist and creative Cynthia McVay sets foot on the island of St. Croix in 2018 for the first time. She arrives with an adventurous partner and her heart set on purchasing and renovating an abandoned house. Things do not go as planned. By the end of the week, she has fallen in love with a skeletal wreck of a home, with iconic stone walls and midcentury lines, allegedly built by German photographer Fritz Henle. With the help of dozens of islanders, Cynthia spends a year artfully coaxing this hidden gem back to life. Join Cynthia and her dog Dexter as they make a go of it—chasing crabs on Ha’ Penny, getting to know some of St. Croix’s charismatic and unusual personalities and beaches, snorkeling off the Frederiksted pier, floating in the blue waters of Sandy Point, standing in line at WAPA, making sense of ubiquitous breeze block, and dancing under the palms, at a gas station and in the grass at Cane Bay. This collection of stories, essays, poetry with over 150 photos offers a personal portrayal of a coy, complex and layered island. At its heart, Under the Crucian Sun is a love story, an ode to the island of St. Croix and its many peoples.
Cynthia McVay grew up in the woods outside Princeton. After decades as a strategy and management consultant, Cynthia returned to writing short stories, poetry and essays. Her work appears in dozens of literary journals and anthologies. A lifelong creative and environmentalist, UNDER THE CRUCIAN SUN: A Memoir of Place is Cynthia's second book, offering a personal portrayal of life on the small, complex island of St. Croix, USVI. Also author of A FIELD OF MY OWN: A Memoir of Place, portraying her love affair with a meadow in the Hudson Valley, Cynthia splits her time between New York and St. Croix USVI, and comes to visit her parents in Princeton.