All Among the Barley Synopsis
The fields were eternal, our life the only way of things, and I would do whatever was required of me to protect it. The autumn of 1933 is the most beautiful Edie Mather can remember, though the Great War still casts a shadow over the cornfields of her beloved home, Wych Farm. When charismatic, outspoken Constance FitzAllen arrives from London to write about fading rural traditions, she takes an interest in fourteen-year-old Edie, showing her a kindness she has never known before.
But the older woman isn't quite what she seems. As harvest time approaches and pressures mount on the whole community, Edie must find a way to trust her instincts and save herself from disaster.
About This Edition
Melissa Harrison Press Reviews
'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
'A work of rare magic' -- Helen Macdonald, author of 'H is for Hawk
' An incredible evocation of one particular corner of rural England in the 1930s ... with this novel she's done what I've long suspected she would: she's written a masterpiece' -- Jon McGregor, author of 'Reservoir 13
' A powerful and lyrical coming-of-age story from a writer who is fast establishing herself as one of the best contemporary exponents of the pastoral novel' - Observer
'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' - Financial Times
'The sleeper hit of the year' - New Stateman
'A really fine, absorbing novel' - Jonathan Coe
'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
'Truly towering ... nature, land, nationalism, war, death, patriarchy and the whole damn thing -- Giles Coren 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
'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
About Melissa Harrison
Melissa Harrison is a novelist and nature writer. She contributes a monthly Nature Notebook column to The Times and writes for the FT Weekend, the Guardian and the New Statesman. Her most recent novel, All Among the Barley, was the UK winner of the European Union Prize for Literature. It was a Waterstones Paperback of the Year and a Book of the Year in the Observer, the New Statesman and the Irish Times.
Her previous books have been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (At Hawthorn Time) and the Wainwright Prize (Rain). She lives in rural Suffolk, the setting for the hit podcast which accompanies her book, also called The Stubborn Light of Things.
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