The Land In Winter by Andrew Miller

 

This novel is set in the remote English countryside in 1962 and focuses on two different couples.  The Parrys are considered gentry, he one of the village doctors while she is a housewife who grew up in a typical middle-class family.  The Simmons are their neighbors across a large field and are farmers.  He comes from money but disapproves of his father and takes nothing from him while his wife grew up poor and a party girl.  He has a university education but decided that farming might be the life for him and Rita.

Both marriages are full of remoteness.  The doctor, Eric, is having an affair with one of the practice's patients, a rich lonely woman whose husband goes to London each day on business leaving her alone.  Bill Simmons is very introverted and spends his days doing farm chores and dreaming of big plans, leaving his extroverted wife Rita on her own.  Bored, one day Rita goes across the field, taking eggs to her neighbors.  Both Rita and Irene are pregnant and they bond over that.

When the greatest blizzard in history comes, the entire village is snowed in.  The trains can't run and the roads are impassable.  The village stores soon have empty shelves and relationships soon show strains.  Irene finds a note from her husband's mistress and vows to leave.  Rita is left on her own while Bill goes to London to ask his father for money to fund his plans for the farm.  Will everything have changed when the weather passes?

Andrew Miller is an English author whose work has gained much acclaim.  This novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won both the Walter Scott and the Winston Graham Prize for Historical Fiction.  The writing draws the reader along and they become more and more deeply entrenched in these lives that have entangled due to proximity during both internal and external crisises.  Miller explores marriages, friendships, the impact of early childhood on adult lives as well as documenting what is known as The Big Freeze in English history.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.