About this item
Highlights
- Hailed as "this generation's Virginia Woolf" (Telegraph) and "one of the UK's most exquisite stylists" (Guardian), Samantha Harvey's breathtaking new novel is a medieval mystery told in reverse over the course of several disquieting holy days
- About the Author: SAMANTHA HARVEY is the author of three novels, Dear Thief, All Is Song, and The Wilderness, which won the Betty Trask Prize.
- 304 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Literary
Description
About the Book
Written with timeless elegance, steeped in the spiritual traditions of the Middle Ages, and brimming with propulsive suspense, Harvey's medieval mystery, told in reverse, is a riveting story of faith, guilt, and the freedom of confession.Book Synopsis
Hailed as "this generation's Virginia Woolf" (Telegraph) and "one of the UK's most exquisite stylists" (Guardian), Samantha Harvey's breathtaking new novel is a medieval mystery told in reverse over the course of several disquieting holy daysReview Quotes
Praise for THE WESTERN WIND
Winner of the Staunch Book Prize
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Named One of Waterstones Paperbacks of the Year 2019
"Beautifully rendered, deeply affecting, thoroughly thoughtful and surprisingly prescient . . . Harvey's is a story of suspense, yes. It is a story of a community crowded with shadows and secrets. But to read this novel is to experience a kind of catharsis. In John Reve, a 15th-century priest at war with his instincts and inclinations and at times even with his own flock, we find a kind of Everyman, and Harvey delivers a singular character at once completely unfamiliar and wholly universal."-New York Times Book Review
"Harvey is an intelligent and audacious writer, able and willing to take creative risks and perform stylistic feats. . . . This is a beautifully written and expertly structured medieval mystery packed with intrigue, drama and shock revelations. "The Western Wind" is no humdrum whodunit.. . . . Harvey plays with unreliable narration, probes memory and airs elusive or inconvenient truths. . . . We navigate the corners of Harvey's characters, all the while marveling at the intricacy of her puzzle and the seductiveness of her prose."--Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Ms. Harvey has summoned this remote world with writing of the highest quality, conjuring its pungencies and peculiarities... In this superb novel, time, like guilt, is a murky medium, at once advancing and circling back, and pulling humankind helplessly between its battling currents."--Wall Street Journal
"The Western Wind brings medieval England back to life... By the time we find out how Tom Newman died, we're less interested in a mystery solved and more intrigued by the fate of a long-gone place, a place that Harvey brings to life from its historical tomb."--Washington Post
"The Western Wind is filled with the rich details of rural medieval life, but the unique structure of the story gives the novel a fresh and modern sensibility. In addition, Oakham's remoteness and parochial village church is contrasted with the spiritual changes coming to both England and the rest of Europe, bringing to mind contemporary issues such as Brexit and the refugee crisis. Harvey...has written a densely packed historical novel that never seems dusty or precious, relishing in the psychological intricacies of power and faith but still crackling with suspense and intrigue."--Bookpage
"A poignant tale of superstition and guilt... a sublime and heartrending story, perfect for readers who enjoy impeccably chosen language and a penetrating look at the human condition."--Shelf Awareness
"Hardly a page goes by without a wondrous observation... Harvey regularly reminds me of Marilynne Robinson--the highest compliment I can pay any novelist."--Commonweal Magazine
"Harvey weaves a dazzling tapestry around loss and confession in late-15th-century England in this breathtaking novel...The lush period details and acute psychological insight will thrill fans of literary mysteries and historical fiction. Utterly engrossing."--Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"Harvey evokes the darkness of both winter and spirit with stark yet lovely imagery... This compulsively readable portrait of doubt and faith reveals, in small lives, humanity's biggest questions."--Booklist (starred review)
"A medieval whodunnit...the experience [Harvey's] book engenders is less like reading a novel and more akin to time travel - something I've only previously encountered in the work o
About the Author
SAMANTHA HARVEY is the author of three novels, Dear Thief, All Is Song, and The Wilderness, which won the Betty Trask Prize. Her books have been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian First Book Award, and the James Tait Black Prize, as well as longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Baileys Women's Prize. She lives in Bath, UK, and teaches creative writing at Bath Spa University.