All Among the Barley

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All of these things appeared to be particularly daunting to Edie, as a teenager, facing a future which seemed quite bleak, even though she was told that she was bright and different and could take a different path to her mother. In October, Wych Farm’s trees turned quickly and all at once, blazing into oranges and reds and burnished golds; with little wind to strip them the woods and spinneys lay on our land like treasure, the massy hedgerows filigreed with old-man’s-beard and enamelled with rosehips and black sloes.

There also seems something sinister about her, though we find out precisely what only at the end of the book. Melissa Harrison's powerful third novel is a sympathetic portrayal of a mind unravelling in the context of a community that is likewise losing its way.

All Among the Barley comes to an abrupt and shocking denouement, at least as brutal as Tarka’s slaughter by hounds, but it is the village of Elmbourne, the meadows and lanes that Edie loves so fiercely, that linger in the memory. Harrison cleverly makes Connie attractive and only gradually allows the insinuating creep of her nasty ideologies to permeate the narrative. The angle which seems to have been given the greatest (and compared to its treatment in the book disproportionate) coverage in press reviews and interviews, is an examination of 1930s rural themed fascism (my term).

And also, if you like a classic coming-of-age story, including the inevitable sexual initiation, then this is it, too.When it comes, the to-be-expected discrediting of Connie is brutal and shocking, and I was disappointed by its harshness. rural revivalism, nature worship, organicism, landscape mysticism and distrust of big business” as being the key elements. Melissa Harrison is the author of the novels Clay and At Hawthorn Time, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize, and one work of non-fiction, Rain, which was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize.

There is plenty of foreshadowing a tragic denouement, and no absence of hints about Connie’s toxic effect on Edie and the neighbourhood. As Constance begins to spend more time with the Mathers, her views on certain political and financial principles begin to emerge. I really enjoyed the way the author explores the nature of change and how people shape their own fortune through the way that they react to their circumstances.We and Edie also see more the tensions in the small farm community – her father’s struggle with despondency and alcohol, her mother’s odd relationship with John whose political differences with her father become increasingly open as the tensions between tradition and progress become greater. It sounds like Edie and Constance are marvelous characters to read about, though the latter’s opinions must be rather jarring to read these days. I have something else from Handheld coming up which will definitely qualify for your indies extravaganza, without a doubt!