A Month in the Country traces the slow revival of the primeval rhythms of life so cruelly disorientated by the Great War.
A damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting, immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside. Now an old man, Birkin looks back on the idyllic summer of 1920, remembering a vanished place untouched by change, a precious moment he has carried with him through the disappointments of the years.
Judgement Day
After a lifetime of teaching English literature, I have accumulated a private and rather eclectic pantheon of great (mainly modern) novels, in which J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country holds a...
Read moreTrouble at Tampling
J. L. Carr was a primary school head in Kettering, Northamptonshire, who took early retirement from teaching so he could become a full-time writer, and who supported himself, his wife and his son in...
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