This is astonishingly powerful.
There are things called 'Bench Stories' between the chapters of the main narrative. Each has an islander sitting on a bench, telling a story from his or her life to a stranger (we don't know who but it's fun to guess). They're basically short stories with a common context and they are so intense. I'd buy the book for them alone.
There's one where a man explains why he walks the island wearing an old sock with a worn violin hanging on his back. It is human, so full of remembered love and pain and present courage that it hurts.