Addlands

Granta Publications, 2016. Good secondhand condition.

A sweeping tale of rural family life set in the Welsh borders. Addlands is the story of two generations of the Hamer family working the Funnon Farm. There is Idris, stubborn, strong, a man of the plough and the prayer-sheet, haunted by the war. Then comes Oliver, a near mythic giant bestriding the landscape, a fighter, a man of the hills as hard as the prehistoric stone. Then there is Etty, Oliver's mother, the centre of this close constellation, watching new technologies and old ways converge on the farm and on the life of her son.

Addlands is instantly a classic of rural British fiction. It is as vast and complex as a symphony but as pure and moving as a solo voice in an empty church. As much a book about birdsong as it is about closing time brawls, Addlands' beauty is in the clear truth of its language and the sheer humane depth of its inquiries. It is a miraculous book which unfurls at the speed of life and bathes its reader in a rare golden light.