Maggie O’Farrell, the best-selling author of HAMNET, brings us her latest historical masterpiece LAND (Hachette 2026), a story of one particular piece of land, one geographical spot in Ireland, and the happenings there over centuries. O’Farrell is a brilliant, evocative writer and it’s easy to be dropped right into the centre of her stories and become immersed in every aspect as if we are living them.
LAND reminds me very much of two other recent novels that focussed on a singular location and all the activities, both human, environmental and animal, that occur there over time: NORTH WOODS by Daniel Mason, and THE END AND EVERYTHING BEFORE IT by Finegan Kruckemeyer, both of which I also loved. The idea of taking the one piece of land where you currently reside, and examining all the many iterations of the uses of that land and the people who have lived there over centuries or even thousands of years before you, is an appealing premise.
In LAND, that place is on a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic Ocean, where in 1865, Tomas and his son Liam are undertaking surveying work for the great Ordnance Survey, a project to map the whole of Ireland. The work is commissioned by the British, and Tomas, while he adores the work of mapping, is unsettled by the knowledge that only a few years earlier, the Great Famine decimated the local Irish people, which leads him to consider the inhabitants of years well before even that time of crisis. Who are the traditional owners of the land? What are the traditional place names? Why do the British get to decide names, titles and borders? It’s a conundrum that bothers Tomas enormously, especially when he stumbles into a hidden copse with a secret (magical?) wellspring that seems to hold mysteries beyond his comprehension. Normally taciturn and quiet, Tomas undergoes a transformation which bewilders his family.
The novel then takes a step backwards, to a time centuries earlier, with the well and copse at the centre of another time of crisis.
But the main story is of Tomas and his family, his wife and children, and the other inhabitants of the small peninsula where they live. As the years pass and his children grow and go their own ways in the world, we are treated to O’Farrell’s masterful ability to encapsulate an individual’s journey both as a part of and separate to the main narrative. His son Liam, only 10 at the time of Tomas’ conversion, struggles to bring his father home safely. Tomas’ wife has her own story to tell. And their other children all take different paths towards adulthood, with many surprising twists and turns along the way.
I found the last third of this book particularly sad and poignant, with sliding doors moments, history repeating itself and characters replicating their ancestors in ways they don’t understand.
To say too much would be a spoiler, but as with any book by O’Farrell, readers know they are in good, safe and confident hands, and will not be surprised by the touch of fantastical / mystical whimsy and nostalgia woven in and out of the story. Exhilarating, courageous, adventurous and evocative, this is a story about separation, connection, belonging, reunion, colonisation, invasion, rebellion, ancient woodland, overlapping lives and a particularly loyal dog who appears again and again over the years. An epic and true family saga covering generations, continents and eons of time. Highly recommend.