The Land in Winter
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
December 1962: In a village deep in the English countryside, two neighboring couples begin the day. Local doctor Eric Parry commences his rounds in the village while his pregnant wife, Irene, wanders the rooms of their old house, mulling over the space that has grown between the two of them.
On the farm nearby lives Irene’s mirror image: witty but troubled Rita Simmons is also expecting. She spends her days trying on the idea of being a farmer’s wife, but her head still swims with images of a raucous past that her husband, Bill, prefers to forget.
When Rita and Irene meet across the bare field between their houses, a clock starts. There is still affection in both their homes; neither marriage has been abandoned. But when the ordinary cold of December gives way—ushering in violent blizzards of the harshest winter in living memory—so do the secret resentments harbored in all four lives.
An exquisite, page–turning examination of relationships, The Land in Winter is a masterclass in storytelling—proof yet again that Andrew Miller is one of the most dazzling chroniclers of the human heart.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This is a quietly devastating portrait of ordinary lives tested by isolation, longing, and the slow encroachment of a coldness that’s both literal and emotional. In a Somerset village during the brutal winter of 1962–63, two neighboring couples find their fragile contentment cracking as the snow seals them off from the outside world. With his trademark precision, British author Andrew Miller (Pure) reveals how class, temperament, and desire keep middle-class transplants Eric and Irene and struggling local farmers Bill and Rita turning restlessly in their own orbits. Every gesture and silence between them feels exact, and every description glints with frostbitten clarity. What begins as an examination of domestic routine deepens into something stark and elemental. Miller’s own narration matches the studied intensity of his prose, avoiding melodrama in favor of subtle moments that hit with unexpected emotional weight. The Land in Winter is a novel about the hungers beneath the surface of everyday life, and the quiet heartbreak of realizing that warmth may not return.
Customer Reviews
terrible/meaningless
Horrid. Utterly dry and equally as boring. What a slog. It’s the sort of pretentious swill that gains accolades for no discernible reason other than that it’s been written by a condescending literary snob. You feel nothing for the characters. You long for some kind of meaning and in the end only take away that you will never ever waste life’s precious time on another book by Andrew Miller.