freezing cold 

Andrew Miller: The Land in Winter. 2024

This year is starting with amazing excellent books! Already, I have read Benjamin Wood´s Skycraper which I loved loved loved and

I just read Alan Hollinghurst´s The Line of Beauty (so great!)

and now, this, my first (but not the last) Andrew Miller The Land in Winter and I am in love with his writing, this book.

All three of them (books) are strong in their charatcters and their story and also this Miller, the historical setting but more over, the chartacters are so well understood, percieved and seen and all and all everything about this book was so well put together. I loved the story, the freezing ambiance of the winter snowstorms written to their emotions, to their numbness to the physical cold days way back in 1962/1963.

For plot: basically, there are two young couples, neighbours in the countryside of West Country in England. Both of the women in their new relationships/marriages are expecting a baby, both of the men struggling with their relationship with their father.

So much happens in just a few days and Miller is precise and in just a hints in the text, all happens, big huge things shattering their lives and nothing is talked about between the spouses as they are more or less strangers to themselves but even more so to their spouses. The expecting of the baby is all new to them and marriage life brings out their worst features in them. There is infidelity, there is mental issues, fear, isolation, but all in all, nothing is too much, not too little and I felt safe within the story. I could feel the cold, the snowstorm, I could feel their pain, their worries, their most secret doubts and fears they talk to no one. Miller digs into his charaters with deep understanding of the humanity and he brings them alive like the sourrdings, the burdens of the war, the burdns of the family tragedies.

Miller is a master in his writing.

I was saving reading this book, as slowly as possibly since I could not bear the thought of not reading it anymore. I tried to stall the time, the pages from not turning and hopefully the delivery comes soon so I can get to a new Andrew Miller soon.

Loved it and recommend it to everyone.