This is a powerful and quietly devastating historical novel that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize late last year. I was immediately intrigued when I read the description so requested it be added to our system. Thanks so much to Julie for purchasing it! I am so glad that she added it and that I had (and others will have) the chance to read it.
In December 1962, two very different couples are neighbors in a rural English village. The Parrys occupy a slightly more respectable position. Eric is the somewhat new village doctor, and his pregnant wife Irene is sophisticated. Though on the surface the Parrys appear to be the perfect couple, they’re anything but.
Bill and Rita Simmons, who own the cottage next door, are more ostensibly dysfunctional. Bill has impulsively purchased a farm but struggles to understand the logistics of farming. He was born and raised in London and sees the farm more as an escape from the family background he sees as shameful than as a vocation. Rita, who bonds with Irene because she’s also expecting a child, is even more isolated and out-of-place. Her marriage to Bill was as impulsive as the farm purchase. He knows little about her life beforehand, and what he does know he prefers not to think about.
Amidst this backdrop of marital and personal turmoil, a historic blizzard descends upon the countryside. Complications ensue.
The real draw of this book are the complex characters. Miller captures their complicated personalities perfectly and probes their psyches meticulously. I found the characters, save for one, likable and sympathetic, and though Miller maintains a remarkable distance from them in the narration, he is not dismissive of them or condescending about them.
Miller writes with eloquent gorgeous prose, and he vividly recreates a time period and a historical event I have little familiarity with. The small village comes to life in the book, as does the weather event called the Big Freeze of 1963.
This is very much a character-driven novel rather than a plot-driven one, but what I appreciated greatly is that the author avoids obvious routes with it. I usually am pretty good at guessing twists, but the turns the book took were not at all the ones I’d anticipated.
I highly recommend this for readers who enjoy thoughtful literary historical fiction. Also recommended for those who enjoy the work of Sebastian Barry, Kate Atkinson, Jane Gardam, Graham Swift, and Hilary Mantel.
What books have grabbed you just from the description? Have you read any other books shortlisted for a prize last year? What books are you buzzing about these days? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on this book or to place it on hold.
Berryville Book Buzz 