Frostquake
The frozen winter of 1962 and how Britain emerged a different country
Published on 4. February 2021
Book
Hardback
368 pages
978-1-78474-295-9 (ISBN)
Description
** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER **
'Juliet Nicolson is brilliant at recapturing mood, moment and character . . . This book is a must' Peter Hennessy
On Boxing Day 1962, when Juliet Nicolson was eight years old, the snow began to fall. It did not stop for ten weeks. The drifts in East Sussex reached twenty-three feet. In London, milkmen made deliveries on skis. On Dartmoor 2,000 ponies were buried in the snow, and starving foxes ate sheep alive.
It wasn't just the weather that was bad. The threat of nuclear war had reached its terrifying height with the recent Cuban Missile Crisis. Unemployment was on the rise, de Gaulle was blocking Britain from joining the European Economic Community, Winston Churchill, still the symbol of Great Britishness, was fading. These shadows hung over a country paralysed by frozen heating oil, burst pipes and power cuts.
And yet underneath the frozen surface, new life was beginning to stir. From poets to pop stars, shopkeepers to schoolchildren, and her own family's experiences, Juliet Nicolson traces the hardship of that frozen winter and the emancipation that followed. That spring, new life was unleashed, along with freedoms we take for granted today.
'Frostquake is wholly remarkable . . . a rare and engrossing read that brought that time straight back to my memory and consciousness' Vanessa Redgrave
'As gripping as any thriller, Frostquake is the story of a national trauma that came out of nowhere and changed us forever. Brilliantly written and almost eerily relevant to our current troubles, I read it in one sitting' Tony Parsons
**A THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES 'BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR' IN 2021**
'Juliet Nicolson is brilliant at recapturing mood, moment and character . . . This book is a must' Peter Hennessy
On Boxing Day 1962, when Juliet Nicolson was eight years old, the snow began to fall. It did not stop for ten weeks. The drifts in East Sussex reached twenty-three feet. In London, milkmen made deliveries on skis. On Dartmoor 2,000 ponies were buried in the snow, and starving foxes ate sheep alive.
It wasn't just the weather that was bad. The threat of nuclear war had reached its terrifying height with the recent Cuban Missile Crisis. Unemployment was on the rise, de Gaulle was blocking Britain from joining the European Economic Community, Winston Churchill, still the symbol of Great Britishness, was fading. These shadows hung over a country paralysed by frozen heating oil, burst pipes and power cuts.
And yet underneath the frozen surface, new life was beginning to stir. From poets to pop stars, shopkeepers to schoolchildren, and her own family's experiences, Juliet Nicolson traces the hardship of that frozen winter and the emancipation that followed. That spring, new life was unleashed, along with freedoms we take for granted today.
'Frostquake is wholly remarkable . . . a rare and engrossing read that brought that time straight back to my memory and consciousness' Vanessa Redgrave
'As gripping as any thriller, Frostquake is the story of a national trauma that came out of nowhere and changed us forever. Brilliantly written and almost eerily relevant to our current troubles, I read it in one sitting' Tony Parsons
**A THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES 'BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR' IN 2021**
Reviews / Votes
Nicolson makes social history feel like reading the best and most gripping novel. A beautiful, wholly original book -- India Knight A brilliant concept transformed into a brilliant and revelatory book. Completely fascinating and engrossing -- William Boyd As gripping as any thriller, Frostquake is the story of a national trauma that came out of nowhere and changed us forever. Brilliantly written and almost eerily relevant to our current troubles -- Tony Parsons An engagingly written mixture of social history and memoir -- Trevor Phillips * Sunday Times * Fascinating, quirky and evocative . . . Nicolson takes us right back to that muffled, snowbound world -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail * An entertaining panorama of life in Britain during the original "beast from the east" . . . [Nicolson's] striking hypothesis . . . explores the impending social revolution from many angles . . . out of catastrophe can come change for good: a social revolution in 1963; perhaps an environmental awakening in 2021 -- Richard Morrison * The Times BOOK OF THE WEEK * Juliet Nicolson's new book is a treasure trove... beautifully written. Nicolson uses the imagery of freeze and thaw as a metaphor for the new Britain that was being born, a conceit as elegant in its execution in its conception -- Alwyn Turner * BBC History Magazine * Juliet Nicolson's timely study of that pivotal winter in British history has so many parallels with today that it occasionally sends a shiver down your spine . . . Her own memories of the turbulent months before and after that day are the thread that hold this beautifully stitched patchwork of stories together . . . convincing, poetic and often very touching -- Marcus Field * Evening Standard * In this lively chronicle Juliet Nicolson, who was eight years old at the time, argues that the winter of 1962-63 marked a turning point in society, with Britain's social conventions beginning to burst apart at the seams. With cameos from Joanna Lumley and Harold Evans, and a nod to imminent Beatlemania, Nicolson buoyantly contends that out of devastation good can come * New Statesman * Nicolson aims to do much more than present a charming word picture of the freakish winter of 1962-63 . . . where Frostquake triumphs is as a metaphor -- a network of images that describes how Britain was beginning to unfreeze from the 50s -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian * She imaginatively uses that ten-week freeze to highlight many of Britain's then moribund laws and attitudes and their imminent collapse . . . Nicolson's writing is energetic and absorbing. By accumulating tiny details she brings a multitude of scenes to life. I thought I knew enough about Sylvia Plath, but the description of her lonely last days with two infant children, in freezing weather in her rental near London Zoo, is heartrending -- Elisa Segrave * Spectator * Cutting deftly from ordinary lives to extraordinary ones, the author vividly evokes a time of almost molten change and innovation -- Ariane Bankes * Tablet * Juliet Nicolson has done something incredibly clever in her book Frostquake. She has written living history. It is stunning -- Joanna Lumley A fascinating description of Britain in the cold, hard winter of 1962 and early 1963, when it started to snow on Boxing Day and didn't stop for 10 weeks -- Esther Freud * i * Frostquake is wholly remarkable . . . a rare and engrossing read that brought that time straight back to my memory and consciousness -- Vanessa Redgrave The freezing winter of 1962-63 finally thawed in early March and as if on cue British society and politics became molten and mobile. Those who lived through it will never forget it. Those who didn't, need to know about it. Juliet Nicolson is brilliant at recapturing mood, moment and character. It's as if the inhabitants of that extraordinary time have flung open the door and welcomed her in from the blizzard outside to tell her all. This book is a must -- Peter Hennessy I was absolutely enthralled from first page to last. It's truly remarkable, so well written, and the scope of her research is extraordinary. I particularly admire the way she entwines her own family's experience with what was going on at the time - a very vivid, accurate and perceptive portrayal of the period at all social, political and cultural levels -- Selina Hastings I loved this beautifully written account of one icy winter during the 1960s in which familiar stories of pop music and politics surprised me thanks to Juliet Nicolson's brilliant research. These events interwoven with Nicolson as an eight year old child and her relationship with her widowed grandfather and her younger brother highlighting how early experiences live on in us forever, make this a deeply moving and original book -- Julia Samuel, psychotherapist and bestselling author of Grief Works The bitter winter of 1962-3 closed down life for Britain just as Covid is doing today. Juliet Nicolson was a child then and is a scintillating storyteller now. There is not an icicle, politician, scandal or song missing from this engrossing re-creation of times so recently passed. Enchanting and wise, it leaves this message for our future: they survived, and so shall we -- Carmen Callil This is an absolutely mesmerising book. Where I knew of the events concerned I was fascinated by the vivid retelling, and when I didn't I was utterly gripped -- Antonia FraserMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
513 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78474-295-9 (9781784742959)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Juliet Nicolson is the author of two works of history, The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War and The Perfect Summer: Dancing into Shadow in 1911; and a family memoir, A House Full of Daughters. She lives with her husband in East Sussex, not far from Sissinghurst, where she spent her childhood.