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.