The Marches: Border walks with my father - Softcover

Stewart, Rory

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099581892 ISBN 13: 9780099581895

Publisher: Vintage, 2017

Synopsis

Rory Stewart explores his love for the UK in this account of history, memory and landscape as he traverses the the borderlands between England and Scotland.

‘This beautifully written book is a haunting reflection of identity and our relationships with the people and places we love’ Daily Mail

His father Brian taught Rory Stewart how to walk, and walked with him on journeys from Iran to Malaysia. Now they have chosen to do their final walk together along ‘the Marches’ - the frontier that divides their two countries, Scotland and England.

On their six-hundred-mile, thirty-day journey - with Rory on foot, and his father ‘ambushing’ him by car – the pair relive Scottish dances, reflect on Burmese honey-bears, and on the loss of human presence in the British landscape.
Travelling across mountain ridges and through housing estates they uncover a forgotten country crushed between England and Scotland: the Middleland. They discover unsettling modern lives, lodged in an ancient place, as their odyssey develops into a history of the British nationhood, a chronicle of contemporary Britain and an exuberant encounter between a father and a son.

And as the journey deepens, and the end approaches, Brian and Rory fight to match, step by step, modern voices, nationalisms and contemporary settlements to the natural beauty of the Marches, and a fierce absorption in tradition in their own unconventional lives.

‘Suggests an open-mindedness in Stewart, a tolerance and flexibility that could make him an exceptional politician while it also continues to define him as a writer’ New York Review of Books

‘Travel writing at its best’ Guardian

About this title

Review:

"I thought at first Rory's book was about the French political party, but blow me it is all about our native heath, plus his dad, and is one of the most original books we have had in 33 years of the prize" (Hunter Davies, Lakeland Book of the Year, 2017)

"Engaging, intelligent, and ultimately moving." (Stuart Kelly Scotsman)

"Suggests an open-mindedness in Stewart, a tolerance and flexibility that could make him an exceptional politician while it also continues to define him as a writer." (Andrew Motion New York Review of Books)

"[A] bewitching book... The entrancing bond between Stewart and his father brings the book alive." (Tristram Hunt Sunday Times)

"Engaging, intelligent and ultimately moving...in some ways, Rory Stewart resembles a Robert MacFarlane who has chosen geopolitics over metaphysics." (Scotland on Sunday)

"This is travel writing at its best." (Katherine Norbury Observer)

"Stewart is the nearest person I have identified in real life to Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, the all-seeing, all-knowing man-child of Empire... The heart of the book is about love... He is observant, gently mocking and he writes beautifully." (Melanie Reid The Times)

"He is a gift to literature." (Sarah Sands Evening Standard)

"[Stewart] has a roving, enquiring mind, which makes him on the page...most agreeable company... This roving, discursive book is a delight to read." (Allan Massie Literary Review)

"The Marches is a memoir full of depth and beguiling humour... His prose is captivating and I hugely admired his dedication in getting to know closely the landscape and people he serves in Parliament." (Charlotte Runice Prospect)

Book Description:

MP and travel writer Rory Stewart traverses the borderlands between England and Scotland, musing on history, memory and landscape

‘This is travel writing at its best.’
Katherine Norbury, Observer
An Observer Book of the Year

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0099581892
• ISBN 13: 9780099581895
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368