A Month in the Country (Paperback)
Description
In J. L. Carr's deeply charged poetic novel, Tom Birkin, a veteran of the Great War and a broken marriage, arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby where he is to restore a recently discovered medieval mural in the local church. Living in the bell tower, surrounded by the resplendent countryside of high summer, and laboring each day to uncover an anonymous painter's depiction of the apocalypse, Birkin finds that he himself has been restored to a new, and hopeful, attachment to life. But summer ends, and with the work done, Birkin must leave. Now, long after, as he reflects on the passage of time and the power of art, he finds in his memories some consolation for all that has been lost.
About the Author
James Lloyd Carr (1912-1994) worked as head teacher, novelist, and publisher. His books include A Season in Sinji, The Harpole Report, What Hetty Did, A Month in the Country and The Battle of Pollock’s Crossing. The last two books were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and A Month in the Country won the Guardian Fiction Prize.
Michael Holroyd was born in London and educated at Eton College. He has written biographies of Lytton Strachey, Augustus John, and a four-volume biography of George Bernard Shaw.
Praise for A Month in the Country…
"How rare a thing it is - the succesful novella. But that is what I uncovered - just last week - when sitting down to J.L. Carr's A Month in the Country. Published by NYRB and shortlisted for the Booker, Carr's lean, but endlessly poignant, account of one man's experiences following the First World War left me with a renewed appreciation not only for the novella, but for those with the ability to capture that complex relationship between memory and silence. Carr's work - like a number of NYRB titles - is well worth the afternoon's read. It is, as Rolling Stone said of Joseph Roth's Flight Without End, a 'minor masterpiece.'" --Philadelphia Daily News
