I have had this book for ages. I kept putting off reading it. Why? No answer comes to mind. I had read all the rave reviews, I am friends with Amanda on Facebook - she sounds fun, witty and warm. I think I must have been frightened that if I read The Lie of the Land I would not like it and I wanted to like it. I am not great on contemporary fiction, I am a creature who would rather read an Anthony than a Joanna Trollope. I have always been like this. It is not something that has grown on me with old age. I disliked contemporary stuff when I was a teenager. I have never been able to work out why and it used to worry me. Now it doesn't.
So last week I picked this book up. I have been having a Golden Age crime blitz which I will be posting about another time and though I was so enjoying this foray into the past I decided perhaps it was time to emerge blinking into the daylight and try something different.
And so, here I am. I may have come late to Amanda's party but boy did I enjoy it when I got there. I sat down and read this solidly all day Monday and I might point out that it is Wimbledon fortnight and, as many of you know, I am not easily distracted from Lopez and Delpo. Well this book distracted me big time.
I thought it was simply TERRIFIC.
Quentin and Lotte Bredin are on the brink of divorce. He has been unfaithful. Many times. And, natch, it is all Lottie's fault:
"The whole disaster is as much her fault as his. For months after Stella was born Lottie changed from an enthusiastic lover to one who was permanently exhausted, unwell and rejecting; he had been grateful to be living in the age of computer pornography. In the end, however, he had been a starving man offered a steak sandwich. Most normal men would have cracked in such conditions, but he never meant to hurt his wife.
It was just sex"
At this point, which was Page 5 I wondered if I wanted to read any more or be bothered to learn about this selfish excuse of a man. Feeling guilty so try to blame the wife. Typical I fumed. But I soldiered on and glad I did because as the story progresses and we learn more about Quentin, about his lack of a relationship with his father, also a womaniser, we understand him more.
Both of them have lost their jobs in the recession and cannot sell their house for the same reason. So they decide to let it out and rent a farmhouse in a remote part of Devon. It is owned by a local boy made good, a rock star, and they wonder why it is so cheap. Lottie is determined to make a go of it but the rest of the family are not so sure, including her son by an earlier relationship, Xan, who has just been turned down by Cambridge and is positive his life is over.
I am not sure if this is right or what the author intended, but it seemed to me that this story is more about Quentin, how he comes to terms with his character, how he sees himself and how he realises how badly he has behaved, how wrong he has been. After his father dies Quentin realises "he wil never see his father again, never speak to him, hear him, hold him or hate him.... Hugh had taught Quentin to strike a fire, build a den, fly a kite, track a deer, avoid self pity.... in this version his father was a good man.He thinks of how Hugh's breathing had stopped, then started ....until there was no breath left at all.
It's such a relief and yet - he will never not miss him"
I found that passage very moving.
But, lest you think this is just an exercise in self discovery and an exploration of a disintegrating marriage, I wish to reassure you that it is also an exciting book with an ending that had me on the edge of my seat. There is a reason for the cheapness of their house, a reason for the comments and looks from the locals and it adds such an edge to this story as the layers of countryside beauty and bucolic doings are stripped away and we find Something Nasty in the Woodshed. I spent the last fifteen minutes of reading totally gripped and on tenterhooks. It was scary, it was thrilling and, in my humble opinion, is simply crying out for a film or tv adaptation.
The Lie of the Land is a stonking great read. I am not giving any more details as I want you to go out and read it though I expect you already have by now......
Why did I leave it so long?
