When we were in Boston a couple of years ago, we went out of the city to Concord to see the house of Louisa May Alcott. In the little high street was a lovely bookshop and inevitably we browsed and bought. At the time of paying I must have given my email address because ever since then I have received a weekly email telling what is going on and giving me a list of recommended books. For some reason I fancied this one and so clicked on Amazon. While I was reading about the book, two things resonated with me: it was set in the West Country (I think I had presumed it was set in America) and the time was the frozen winter of 1962-63. I remember it well.
Just as right now there are many novels placed carefully in covid years, so, to use the big freeze as a backdrop gives the story a particular feel and of course it encloses the characters, in this case in their respective houses just a mile or so apart, deep in the countryside. Eric and Irene, Bill and Rita, two newly wed couples, each expecting a first baby and each with secrets. When you can’t leave home, there is no escape and nowhere to hide. In a frozen world, that seems as if it will never thaw, there is nowhere to run to. Close proximity for long periods of time will always be tricky and gradually, subtly, their lives begin to unravel. They don’t however do this noisily for this is a quiet book about quiet lives and the pain and the turmoil tend to be held inside.
A beautifully written book by an author that I have not read before.