The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller — #10booksof summer
Atmospheric. Psychologically insightful. Eminently readable. The three elements that are the hallmark of Andrew Miller’s fiction, are shown in abundance in his latest novel, The Land in Winter.
Set during the Big Freeze of 1962-3, The Land in Winter captures the lives of two mismatched recently married couples as they contend with disappointments and resentments in their marriages. As the narrative shifts between them, we learn of their unfulfilled expectations, their frustrations and their resentments.
Eric and Irene Parry enjoy a comfortable life made possible by his job as a country doctor. in the west of England. But tensions are bubbling beneath the surface of this picture of domestic harmony.
He’s engaged in an affair with the wife of a wealthy businessman, nipping off for woodland assignations in between his house calls and surgery appointments. Meanwhile his wife, a townie at heart, is facing up to the mundane reality of domestic life and the loneliness living in the countryside with a husband who seems so distant and unreachable.
Across the fields in a draughty farmhouse, live Bill and Rita Simmons. He’s a former city man who turned his back on the family business to try his hand at dairy farming. It’s harder than he imagined. Rita , a former nightclub dancer, simply isn’t cut out for the life of a farmer’s wife. Bill gets home ravenous from a day out milking, muck clearing and cattle feeding to find just burnt sausages or cheese and bread. Rita is too busy reading science fiction or battling with the voices in her head to think about cooking.
As one of the coldest winters on record grips England, enveloping the country in deep snow for weeks, the two couples find themselves cut off from the rest of the world. Without the small distractions of everyday existence, tensions escalate.
The Land in Winter is a domestic novel. One that captures every detail of daily lives —shopping lists, laundry, bath-time, putting coal on the fire; concerts on the radio in the evening.
We learn for example that Irene “… carried the cup and saucer to the kitchen, left them in the sink and went to the hall.” while Rita “made tea in the pot, poured herself a mug, sweetened it, fetched her book, fetched her cigarettes and matches, dropped a cushion on the floor and sat down with her back against the Rayburn.”
Why all these details? I think they’re used to reinforce the idea of the smallness of these women’s lives. But they are also used as subtle signals of class differences between these two couples. Things are about to change in Britain — a cultural and social revolution is just a few years away — but for now, class matters. It governs what you eat, what you read and the kind of people who become your friends.
The Land in Winter superbly uses weather conditions to illustrate the variations in the relationships between the four characters. Repeated references to how warm/cold their homes are, indicate the degree of closeness and distance in their interactions. The snow and ice that cuts off them off physically from other parts of the country isn’t just a plot device; it symbolises the frozen and paralysed nature of their marriages.
Miller’s writing is as beautifully precise and deliberate as ever. This isn’t a showy novel, it creeps up on you one snow flake at a time. By the end there are signs of a thaw in the countryside and some stirrings of normal life returning. But for the four people at the heart of this drama, the future is less certain.
Annabel (AnnaBookBel)
This is next on my reading pile. I’m looking forward to it.
BookerTalk
I suspect you’ll enjoy it Annabel
Calmgrove
Ooh, I’d love to read this, Karen, thank you for alerting us to it, and as someone who was a schoolboy in the West Country during this period it’d be good to be reminded how adults actually coped during this prolonged period.
Calmgrove
Oh, and I wonder whether the title was a conscious or unconscious echo of the play/movie called The Lion in Winter about Henry II, Eleanor of Acquitaine and their obstreperous family?
BookerTalk
Brilliant film! Not sure if it influenced Miller’s choice of title though
BookerTalk
You’ll enjoy it even more then. The actual location isn’t specified though you might be able to work it out if you know the area
Brona
I keep thinking about this book, it is lingering long! I can now see why it won the Walter Scott Prize this year and I hope it makes the shortlist for the Booker.
BookerTalk
I really hope it does though I’m not holding my breath. The Booker judges seem to take delight in rejecting books that are readable
Cathy746books
This hadn’t appealed to me before but it sounds really good!
BookerTalk
I’m not a huge fan of relationship type novels generally but Miller is such a good writer.
Jane
This just sounds so good, definitely on my list, thanks!
BookerTalk
It’s the third book I’ve read by him and every one of them has been stunning
Jenny Lockwood
Thank you for this review – very timely for me! I have just finished reading ‘Misinterpretation’ (another Booker long-lister), and was contemplating this book as my next read. I do like Miller’s writing and his thoughtfully-drawn characters stick in my mind. Looks like this is the next book for me to dive into, as autumn nights draw in…
BookerTalk
Really hope you enjoy it as much as I did
This might be the only Booker contender I’ll get around to reading from the long lis.
kimbofo
I had no interest in reading this book, but then I read your review and Brona’s back to back and now I feel like I need to hunt it out!
BookerTalk
Really, really hoping you like it as much as Brona and I did
A Life in Books
I was so pleased to see this one on the Booker longlist. Miller summons up the period so well, caught between the fallout from WW2 and the imminent wave of social change.
BookerTalk
It’s a brilliant piece of historical fiction partly because all the details about the period are so well woven into the narrative.None of the info dump stuff you get in so many novels
Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead
This one is next on my list of 2025 Booker readings (I’ve read Audition; One Boat & Endling and am finishing up The Rest of Our Lives). It will be my first novel by Andrew Miller and sounds quite intriguing!
margaret21
‘It creeps up on you one snow flake at a time’. I loved this, just as I loved this book. I was a townie back then, but I remember that winter so well, and though so different from my experience of it, it’s evoked so well by Miller. The man can write! I don’t think he’s got a second-rate book in him.
BookerTalk
This is my third. I still have Ingenious Pain to read which I’m told is superb.
I was a bit too young to remember that winter fortunately but I know my dad found it incredibly difficult to get to work because he had to cycle s over the mountain!
margaret21
Goodness! We girls on the other hand, doomed to wear uniform school skirts, discovered ‘bloomers’ – knickers that extended down almost to our knees to fight the cold.
BookerTalk
What a sight that must have been
margaret21
Not as bad as it sounds. Our skirts strictly covered our knees.
BookerTalk
Ha Ha. We had a head of girls school who made us walk over a mirror to prove we were wearing regulation navy knickers!
margaret21
No!!!!!! That beats my school, where as prefects we had to watch the girls filing past us to make sure they were wearing the regulation hat and gloves at the end of the day. It is a state school.
BookerTalk
Gloves! Wow, I thought our uniform was stupid enough with berets and sashes but gloves is a new one for me
margaret21
My mother felt gloves were part of a well-dressed woman’s attire. And she was far from posh. This is the late 50s, early 60s. But sashes???
BookerTalk
sashes were very St Trinians I thought.
margaret21
Oh, of course! I’d forgotten that!
BookerTalk
It really sucks you in….