Weathering
Published on 15. January 2015
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-1-4088-4093-1 (ISBN)
Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BETTY TRASK PRIZE 2016
Pearl doesn't know how she's ended up in the river - the same messy, cacophonous river in the same rain-soaked valley she'd been stuck in for years. Or why, for that matter, she'd been stupid enough to fall down those rickety stairs.
Ada, Pearl's daughter, doesn't know how she's ended up back in the house she left thirteen years ago - with no heating apart from a fire she can't light, no way of getting around apart from an old car she's scared to drive, and no company apart from echoing footsteps on the damp floorboards. With her daughter Pepper, she starts to sort through Pearl's things, clearing the house so she can leave and not look back.
Pepper has grown used to following her restless mother from place to place, but this house, with its faded photographs, its boxes of cameras and its stuffed jackdaw, is something new. Fascinated by the scattering of people she meets, by the river that unfurls through the valley, and by the strange old woman who sits on the bank with her feet in the cold, coppery water, Pepper doesn't know why anyone would ever want to leave.
As the first frosts of autumn herald the coming of a long winter and Pepper and Ada find themselves irresistibly entangled with the life of the valley, each will discover the ways that places can take root inside us and bind us together.
Pearl doesn't know how she's ended up in the river - the same messy, cacophonous river in the same rain-soaked valley she'd been stuck in for years. Or why, for that matter, she'd been stupid enough to fall down those rickety stairs.
Ada, Pearl's daughter, doesn't know how she's ended up back in the house she left thirteen years ago - with no heating apart from a fire she can't light, no way of getting around apart from an old car she's scared to drive, and no company apart from echoing footsteps on the damp floorboards. With her daughter Pepper, she starts to sort through Pearl's things, clearing the house so she can leave and not look back.
Pepper has grown used to following her restless mother from place to place, but this house, with its faded photographs, its boxes of cameras and its stuffed jackdaw, is something new. Fascinated by the scattering of people she meets, by the river that unfurls through the valley, and by the strange old woman who sits on the bank with her feet in the cold, coppery water, Pepper doesn't know why anyone would ever want to leave.
As the first frosts of autumn herald the coming of a long winter and Pepper and Ada find themselves irresistibly entangled with the life of the valley, each will discover the ways that places can take root inside us and bind us together.
Reviews / Votes
I think this is a remarkable debut and I'll be surprised if it doesn't win prizes ... So exquisitely written and so beautiful ... She is an immense talent, in the same class as Marilynne Robinson * <b>Louise Doughty, BBC <i>Saturday Review</i></b> * I was drawn into this marvellous debut by the exquisite writing, the characters and strong sense of place * <b><i>Woman and Home</i></b> * Wood beautifully renders a landscape by turns rain-soaked and snow-laden, using it to suffuse her debut novel with a tense atmosphere of impending disaster. The author has a gift for capturing how humans are bound to and moulded by places * <b><i>Sunday Times</i></b> * Wood's writing about landscape is vivid and original ... Wood introduces some fresh metaphors that sparkle through the prose. This is a striking debut with a very strong sense of place and characters that grow and change as they come to terms with the past * <b><i>Glasgow Herald</i></b> * Five stars ... Wood has created a work as intricately detailed as one of the delicate pieces of jewellery that Pearl used to restore ... Wood is a creator of worlds. This sodden river valley is one to savour * <b><i>Daily Telegraph</b></i> * A lot of weather features in Lucy Wood's hotly tipped first novel ... often exhilarating conjuring of landscape * <b><i>Metro</i></b> * Prize-winning Lucy Wood's Diving Belles and Other Stories introduced a lyrical and distinctive voice and received rave reviews. Weathering, her first novel, weaves ever deeper connections between myth, fantasy and the everyday * <b><i>Daily Mail</b></i> * Wood's 2012 short story collection Driving Belles was a magical thing that cast its spell from page one, holding the reader suspended in a delightful hazy cloud of Cornish fairytale dust until the end. Her debut novel Weathering has the same strong sense of place and otherworldliness * <b><i>Big Issue</i></b> * Beautiful ... The river and the house are wonderfully drawn and the voices of the characters, unforgettable * <b><i>The Times</i></b> * Haunting ... In luminous, lyrical prose, she tells the story of Ada, who's come to clear out her mother's house * <b><i>Sunday Express</i></b> * No bald description of Wood's extraordinary novel can do justice to its lyrical prose and bold storytelling. An imaginative tour de force * <b><i>Mail on Sunday</b></i> * Weathering is a beautiful novel on every level. Firstly in the writing with Wood's clear and wonderfully descriptive prose. I swear I felt shivery when reading about the cold damp house ... A joy to read, the story strikes a chord, not just because of the relationships between the women, but for anyone who has ever escaped a small town, only to find themselves inexplicably pulled back **** * <b><i>Stylist</b></i> * Wood's novel manages to bring inventive descriptions to the universal ... The mother-daughter relationships are brilliantly described ... Pepper brings light to the narrative, with dialogue that is convincing and funny * <b><i>Irish Times</i></b> * Wood interweaves the ordinary and surreal to terrific effect * <b><i>Independent on Sunday</b></i> * What sets this novel apart is its extraordinary treatment of the rural setting. It is both uncanny and pitilessly realist ... Such a treatment requires formidable descriptive powers, which Wood possesses in spades ... One of Wood's great strengths is the ability to fully inhabit her characters' consciousness. She skilfully modifies her prose as she moves from one mind to another, leaving her vividly descriptive passages with snippets of speech or thought, wittily profane and colloquial ... Weathering cannot be accused of zipping along - nor does it need to: its power lies in the gradual accrual of unnerving detail, as irresistible as a Dorset river in spate. Once immersed, you can see no more escape its pull than Pearl can climb out of the rivers current. On closing the book, I half expected to find my clothes were chill and damp, and that, behind the curtain, there stood a crotchety ghost, fretting for her daughter and blowing her nose * <b><i>Guardian</i></b> * Beautiful descriptions, fully realized characters and a deft portrayal of that irresistible pull of home * <b><i>Stylist</b></i> * It has all the hallmarks of a classic haunted house novel ... Wood's command of language and imagery verges on the sensational. The rural setting has a beauty - herons merge with wet stones, crushed grass and mist - but it's incredibly hard-won ... A beautiful book about family, history and nature * <b><i>Observer</b></i> * Given Vivian's profession, it comes as no surprise to see Shamsie engaged in a multi-layered excavation of colonial attitudes, the role of women in society, war, loyalty and betrayal. Many novels are ambitious in scope. Few authors are as capable as Shamsie at rising to the challenge * <b><i>Literary Review</i></b> * Superlatives abound for Wood's debut novel ... Powerful ... Quietly absorbing * Sunday Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 135 mm
Weight
437 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-4093-1 (9781408840931)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Lucy Wood is the author of a critically acclaimed collection of short stories based on Cornish folklore Diving Belles and Other Stories. She has been longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and was a runner-up in the BBC National Short Story Award. She has also been awarded the Holyer an Gof Award and a Somerset Maugham Award. Lucy Wood has a master's degree in creative writing from Exeter University. She lives in Devon.