A shell-shocked veteran spends a summer in a Yorkshire village uncovering a medieval wall painting -- and the summer becomes something he will spend the rest of his life measuring other summers against.
About This Book
In the summer of 1920, a shell-shocked, heartbroken veteran of the trenches arrives in a quiet Yorkshire village to carry out a modest commission: uncovering and restoring a medieval wall painting long hidden beneath whitewash in the local church, and over a few golden, healing weeks, immersed in patient work, warmed by the countryside and the kindness of the villagers, and quietly, hopelessly drawn to the vicar's lovely wife, he finds a fragile peace and a happiness he knows cannot last. Carr writes a short, luminous, deeply moving novel about memory, transience, and the restorative power of a perfect interlude, narrated in old age by the man looking back on that summer as the happiest of his life, its beauty inseparable from its brevity and the sense of something never spoken and never seized. The prose is spare and radiant, elegiac without being sentimental. This suits readers who want a quiet, beautiful, bittersweet literary novel about healing, longing, and a fleeting idyll, and who savor understatement and mood. It fits less well anyone wanting plot or drama, since almost nothing happens and the power lies in atmosphere and restraint. The detail that the veteran spends the summer uncovering a hidden medieval painting while quietly, wordlessly falling in love, gives the book its tender, aching center. Luminous, gentle, and moving, it rewards readers who love quiet fiction. Those wanting incident may find it slight, but its evocation of a lost, perfect summer is exactly what makes it a treasure.
Who This Is For
Best for readers who want to finish a book feeling better about the world than when they started. The prose is accessible: you can read this quickly and it never asks too much of you. It takes its time, and that's the point. Patience is rewarded. If you're drawn to darker, more complex territory, this may feel slight.
Best Read When
Best read when you're in the mood for something warm and uplifting, and a read that's slow and deeply immersive.
What It Explores
A Month in the Country explores love in its most complicated forms, loss and what remains after it, redemption — whether it is earned, possible, or ever truly complete, and identity and the gap between who we are and who we pretend to be.
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