All Among the Barley - Hardcover

Harrison, Melissa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1408897997 ISBN 13: 9781408897997

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018

Synopsis

From the author of Costa-shortlisted and Baileys-longlisted At Hawthorn Time comes a major new novel. Set on a farm in Suffolk just before the Second World War, it introduces a girl on the cusp of adulthood

'A masterpiece' Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13

Longlisted for the New Angle Prize 2019

The autumn of 1933 is the most beautiful Edie Mather can remember, although the Great War still casts its shadow over the fields and villages around her beloved home, Wych Farm.

Constance FitzAllen arrives from London to document fading rural traditions and beliefs. For Edie, who must soon face the unsettling pressures of adulthood, the glamorous and worldly outsider appears to be a godsend. But there is more to the older woman than meets the eye.

As harvest time approaches and pressures mount on the entire community, Edie must find a way to trust her instincts and save herself from disaster.

About this title

Review:

Powerful and beautifully written . Harrison is the traditional being, a nature writer with a knowledge and eye for detail that recalls Thomas Hardy and John McGahern. And that makes this novel impossible to forget (The Times)

Fast emerging as one of our finest nature writers, Melissa Harrison combines a deep knowledge of our rural landscape with an unsentimental understanding of how our environment informs the way we live . A beautiful and wholly tragic novel (Daily Mail)

An incredible evocation of one particular corner of rural England in the 1930s. Powerful and subtle and richly detailed, this is a book that inhabits its territory, knows its people, and follows its own haunting logic. Some of the great themes of English life are tackled here - class division, the patriarchy, folklore and psychosis, creeping fascism - but rather than being simply ticked off they are instead woven into the narrative with great subtlety and beauty. I've been following Melissa Harrison's work with interest for some time now, and with this novel she's done what I've long suspected she would: she's written a masterpiece (Jon McGregor, author of 'Reservoir 13')

Looking through Melissa Harrison's eyes provides a new way of seeing everything. Her descriptions of nature are so vivid that in some passages you hear and smell as well as see. Such original and intelligent writing is rare (Literary Review)

All Among the Barley is a work of rare magic (Helen Macdonald, author of 'H is for Hawk')

A powerful exploration of rural lives, nationalism and nostalgia (Alex Preston, 'The Best Fiction of 2018' Observer)

What a brilliant and timely novel All Among The Barley is. Deeply evocative of a historical moment - rural England between the wars, before mechanisation - it is also, unmistakably, about questions that press hard on us now, above all the dangers of nationalism, and how easily a love of place can be corrupted into something dark and exclusionary. This is an important book by a writer of great gifts (Robert Macfarlane)

A novel of acute psychology and subtle political sense, portrayed in language of sheer largesse. It describes a land resplendent and saturated with summer, but known dangers flicker on the edges: debt, crop failure, illness and accident . Set in Suffolk, mainly in 1934, it is an exquisitely intelligent take on the pastoral form (TLS)

A deeply atmospheric work, steeped in the rhythms and traditions of the English countryside and the rhythms and traditions of its literature. Its texture - dense, hypnotic and beautifully rendered - is oddly daring. The fusing of ancient natural cycles and farming techniques with powerfully descriptive prose and rich characterisation feels luxuriant on the page . Startling ... A novel whose texture is both poetic and skillfully wrought (Financial Times)

Nostalgia, nationalism and superstition all play their part in an acutely observed narrative that is as pertinent to the here and now as it is evocative of its time and place (The Best New Fiction Mail on Sunday)

Book Description:

From the author of Costa-shortlisted and Baileys-longlisted At Hawthorn Time comes a major new novel. Set on a farm in Suffolk just before the Second World War, it introduces a girl on the cusp of adulthood

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1408897997
• ISBN 13: 9781408897997
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352