Length has no premium, when it comes to the quality of fiction. "A Month In The Country," for its brevity covers a lot of terrain--physical and emotional--in short form, speaking much for the author's sense of economy in both prose and structure.
What seems like almost a series of character vignettes coming together is framed within the visit of Tom Birkin, who arrives, post war, in the English town of Oxygod, to work on restoring a mural in a local church.
The writing and the flavor of it all seem more like Thomas Hardy, to whose work this book is often compared.
Yes, the artistic musings are brilliant, but so are the character depictions--Alice Keach, Kathy Ellerbeck, James Moon--who stay with the reader most. The novel is truly "British"--reserved, structured, ending right where it should, with no lose ends.
Such writing is rare today. This gem is a reminder it once existed.
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