Tom Birkin arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby in 1920, physically scarred and suffering from a nervous facial twitch following his service in the Great War. Commissioned to uncover a medieval wall painting hidden beneath layers of whitewash in the village church, Birkin spends his summer living in the belfry and meticulously scraping away debris. As the image of a Great Judgment emerges, he formulates a friendship with Moon, another veteran searching for a lost grave nearby, and navigates a quiet, unconsummated attraction to the vicar's wife, Alice Keach.
Readers drawn to historical fiction and the psychological effects of combat will appreciate this focused study of recovery. The book serves those who value technical details of art restoration and the specific rhythms of English rural life before modernization. A reader finishes the story with a clear understanding of how manual labor and a fixed period of solitude can stabilize a fractured mind. It offers a precise look at the brief window of peace between world wars and the fleeting nature of domestic happiness.
Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Mindful Reader. Which reader are you?
Insights from A Month in the Country
“I was a survivor and I was beginning to feel like one.”
Healing takes a long time. Birkin arrives with a facial twitch and a broken heart. He finds peace by uncovering a medieval painting in a quiet church.
“We can't have it all. We have to take what we can get.”
Summer nights in the belfry felt like a separate life. The war was over but the ghosts stayed. It shows how work can be a kind of prayer.
Moon is out there in the fields looking for a lost grave. He is just as damaged as Birkin. They find a strange comfort in their shared silence.
“We had the luck of the devil.”
The memory of Alice Keach stays perfect because nothing happened. It is about the heavy weight of things left unsaid. Sometimes the best version of love is the one you leave behind.
- Published
- 1980
- Publisher
- NYRB Classics
- ISBN
- 9780940322479
- Language
- EN
