A long spring uncovering a Medieval wall painting in rural Yorkshire allows a young man time for recuperation after WW1. There's a love affair that doesn't quite happen, and a singular cast of supporting characters. This story of wistful reminiscence of an England long gone, is written in English constructed as it should be.
"How rare a thing it is - the succesful novella. But that is what I uncovered - just last week - when sitting down to J.L. Carr's "A Month in the Country". Published by NYRB and shortlisted for the Booker, Carr's lean, but endlessly poignant, account of one man's experiences following the First World War left me with a renewed appreciation not only for the novella, but for those with the ability to capture that complex relationship between memory and silence. Carr's work - like a number of NYRB titles - is well worth the afternoon's read. It is, as Rolling Stone said of Joseph Roth's "Flight Without End", a 'minor masterpiece.'" --"Philadelphia Daily News"
"Unlike anything else in modern English Literature." "The Spectator"
"Carr s blessedly small tale of lost love is also a small hymn about art and the compensating joy of the artist, both in giving and receiving. It stays with us, too, and is oddly haunting." "The New Yorker"
"Carr has the magic touch to re-enter the imagined past." Penelope Fitzgerald
"The work is virtually perfect, and written with a great deal of liveliness and wit." Michael Wood
"A unique and special experience, a visit to a special time and place, deeply observed and portrayed in beautiful prose." "The Washington Post"
"Carr s prose is spare, elegant and buoyed with wit; the idyllic countryside and its inhabitants are rendered in affectionate detail." "Publisher s Weekly"
""A Month in the Country" is one of those perfect, precious novels that you want to loan to friends, buy all your relatives for Christmas and give to your latest paramour." Eve Claxton, "Time Out New York"
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"Unlike anything else in modern English Literature." -- The Spectator
"Carr's blessedly small tale of lost love is also a small hymn about art and the compensating joy of the artist, both in giving and receiving. It stays with us, too, and is oddly haunting." -- The New Yorker
"Amazingly beautiful: so perfect, so exquisite! ...The nuance and small moments that make up this gorgeous little novella are breathtaking, and the quiet, spare story will completely invade you. Brilliant!" --Dianah H, Powell's City of Books blog
"Carr has the magic touch to re-enter the imagined past." -- Penelope Fitzgerald
"The work is virtually perfect, and written with a great deal of liveliness and wit." --Michael Wood
"A unique and special experience, a visit to a special time and place, deeply observed and portrayed in beautiful prose." -- The Washington Post
"Carr's prose is spare, elegant and buoyed with wit; the idyllic countryside and its inhabitants are rendered in affectionate detail." -- Publisher's Weekly
"A Month in the Country...is one of those perfect, precious novels that you want to loan to friends, buy all your relatives for Christmas and give to your latest paramour." -- Eve Claxton, Time Out New York
