The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Review)

I get the hype with this one: I read this pretty quickly & it’s not a short book!

Set during the 1962-3 UK Big Freeze in a village outside Bristol, it’s a book about what happens to people when they’re frozen in time. Suspended between catastrophes, pregnancies, marriage, big changes, moves, or shifts; people are vulnerable, complex, trapped in their own stories and heads, but also tender, funny, and resilient.

It’s a story of two couples and their worlds during this exceptionally cold winter. You have the village doctor and his “prim” wife, and the new university dropout farmer with his wife, Rita, who has a more colourful past in Bristol. Infidelity, silences, misunderstanding, desire: all converge on the two couples who are expecting their first children.

This feels like the “quintessential” novel: a really accomplished narrative that weaves various events together with skill. It has quite a lot of darkness, but also a robust plot that keeps it moving. I loved the fleshed out glimpses of reality, zooming in on details and embracing bold imagery.

I got a lot of pleasure from reading about Bristol and places I know really well.

Read if you want to immerse yourself in a good novel, curling up with a cup of tea.