Harvest
Man Booker Prize Finalist
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3.9 • 39 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • SHORT-LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE • In this hauntingly evoked portrait of rural life, Jim Crace skillfully unravels the delicate fabric of a community in the wake of economic progress.
"In his compassionate curiosity and his instincts for insurgent uncertainty, Crace surely ranks among our greatest novelists of radical upheaval, a perfect fit for our unstable, unforgiving age." —The New York Times Book Review
On the morning after harvest, the inhabitants of a remote English village awaken looking forward to a hard-earned day of rest and feasting at their landowner's table. But the sky is marred by two conspicuous columns of smoke, replacing pleasurable anticipation with alarm and suspicion.
One smoke column is the result of an overnight fire that has damaged the master's outbuildings. The second column rises from the wooded edge of the village, sent up by newcomers to announce their presence. In the minds of the wary villagers a mere coincidence of events appears to be unlikely, with violent confrontation looming as the unavoidable outcome. Meanwhile, another newcomer has recently been spotted taking careful notes and making drawings of the land. It is his presence more than any other that will threaten the village's entire way of life.
In effortless and tender prose, Jim Crace details the unraveling of a pastoral idyll in the wake of economic progress. His tale is timeless and unsettling, framed by a beautifully evoked world that will linger in your memory long after you finish reading.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his previous 10 novels, the versatile Crace has been heralded for his firmly rooted, painstakingly detailed impressions of time and place, and his latest work is no exception. In fact, the setting an isolated English farming village, in an unspecified past, with its "planched and thicketed" inhabitants is so imaginatively described that it stands as the book's richest character. Over the course of seven days following the harvest, the hamlet is alight with sudden change. A mysterious fire has set Master Kent's manor stables and dovecote ablaze. Three newcomers two men and an ominously alluring woman who arrived that same night are hastily blamed for the fire. All three have their heads shaved as punishment, and the men are shackled for a week to a pillory. When one of them dies and the master's favorite horse is later found bludgeoned to death, accusations of witchcraft erupt from within the townsfolk's ranks and nothing, not even the secretive Master Kent's halfhearted attempt at rooting out the truth and delivering justice, can quell the thirst for revenge that rattles the once principled town to its foundation. Walter Thirsk plays the perfect unreliable narrator; his deliberations about Master Kent's true intentions, his neighbors' guilt, and his own role in the events deepen an already resonant story. Crace's signature measured delivery and deliberate focus create unforgettably poetic passages that quiver with beauty. An electrifying return to form after All That Follows.
