Genre Fiction
![Samantha Harvey - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B01A2MQ9DM.jpg)
The Western Wind: A Novel
An extraordinary new novel by Samantha Harvey―whose books have been nominated for the Man Booker Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), and the Guardian First Book Award―The Western Wind is a riveting story of faith, guilt, and the freedom of confession.
It's 1491. In the small village of Oakham, its wealthiest and most industrious resident, Tom Newman, is swept away by the river during the early hours of Shrove Saturday. Was it murder, suicide, or an accident? Narrated from the perspective of local priest John Reve―patient shepherd to his wayward flock―a shadowy portrait of the community comes to light through its residents' tortured revelations. As some of their darkest secrets are revealed, the intrigue of the unexplained death ripples through the congregation. But will Reve, a man with secrets of his own, discover what happened to Newman? And what will happen if he can't?
Written with timeless eloquence, steeped in the spiritual traditions of the Middle Ages, and brimming with propulsive suspense, The Western Wind finds Samantha Harvey at the pinnacle of her outstanding novelistic power.
It's 1491. In the small village of Oakham, its wealthiest and most industrious resident, Tom Newman, is swept away by the river during the early hours of Shrove Saturday. Was it murder, suicide, or an accident? Narrated from the perspective of local priest John Reve―patient shepherd to his wayward flock―a shadowy portrait of the community comes to light through its residents' tortured revelations. As some of their darkest secrets are revealed, the intrigue of the unexplained death ripples through the congregation. But will Reve, a man with secrets of his own, discover what happened to Newman? And what will happen if he can't?
Written with timeless eloquence, steeped in the spiritual traditions of the Middle Ages, and brimming with propulsive suspense, The Western Wind finds Samantha Harvey at the pinnacle of her outstanding novelistic power.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for THE WESTERN WIND
Winner of the Staunch Book Prize
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Named One of Waterstones Paperbacks of the Year 2019
"Beautifully rendered, deeply affecting, thoroughly thoughtful and surprisingly prescient . . . Harvey's is a story of suspense, yes. It is a story of a community crowded with shadows and secrets. But to read this novel is to experience a kind of catharsis. In John Reve, a 15th-century priest at war with his instincts and inclinations and at times even with his own flock, we find a kind of Everyman, and Harvey delivers a singular character at once completely unfamiliar and wholly universal."―New York Times Book Review
"Harvey is an intelligent and audacious writer, able and willing to take creative risks and perform stylistic feats. . . . This is a beautifully written and expertly structured medieval mystery packed with intrigue, drama and shock revelations. "The Western Wind" is no humdrum whodunit.. . . . Harvey plays with unreliable narration, probes memory and airs elusive or inconvenient truths. . . . We navigate the corners of Harvey's characters, all the while marveling at the intricacy of her puzzle and the seductiveness of her prose."―Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Ms. Harvey has summoned this remote world with writing of the highest quality, conjuring its pungencies and peculiarities… In this superb novel, time, like guilt, is a murky medium, at once advancing and circling back, and pulling humankind helplessly between its battling currents."―Wall Street Journal
"The Western Wind brings medieval England back to life… By the time we find out how Tom Newman died, we're less interested in a mystery solved and more intrigued by the fate of a long-gone place, a place that Harvey brings to life from its historical tomb."―Washington Post
"The Western Wind is filled with the rich details of rural medieval life, but the unique structure of the story gives the novel a fresh and modern sensibility. In addition, Oakham's remoteness and parochial village church is contrasted with the spiritual changes coming to both England and the rest of Europe, bringing to mind contemporary issues such as Brexit and the refugee crisis. Harvey…has written a densely packed historical novel that never seems dusty or precious, relishing in the psychological intricacies of power and faith but still crackling with suspense and intrigue."―Bookpage
"A poignant tale of superstition and guilt… a sublime and heartrending story, perfect for readers who enjoy impeccably chosen language and a penetrating look at the human condition."―Shelf Awareness
"Hardl...
Winner of the Staunch Book Prize
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Named One of Waterstones Paperbacks of the Year 2019
"Beautifully rendered, deeply affecting, thoroughly thoughtful and surprisingly prescient . . . Harvey's is a story of suspense, yes. It is a story of a community crowded with shadows and secrets. But to read this novel is to experience a kind of catharsis. In John Reve, a 15th-century priest at war with his instincts and inclinations and at times even with his own flock, we find a kind of Everyman, and Harvey delivers a singular character at once completely unfamiliar and wholly universal."―New York Times Book Review
"Harvey is an intelligent and audacious writer, able and willing to take creative risks and perform stylistic feats. . . . This is a beautifully written and expertly structured medieval mystery packed with intrigue, drama and shock revelations. "The Western Wind" is no humdrum whodunit.. . . . Harvey plays with unreliable narration, probes memory and airs elusive or inconvenient truths. . . . We navigate the corners of Harvey's characters, all the while marveling at the intricacy of her puzzle and the seductiveness of her prose."―Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Ms. Harvey has summoned this remote world with writing of the highest quality, conjuring its pungencies and peculiarities… In this superb novel, time, like guilt, is a murky medium, at once advancing and circling back, and pulling humankind helplessly between its battling currents."―Wall Street Journal
"The Western Wind brings medieval England back to life… By the time we find out how Tom Newman died, we're less interested in a mystery solved and more intrigued by the fate of a long-gone place, a place that Harvey brings to life from its historical tomb."―Washington Post
"The Western Wind is filled with the rich details of rural medieval life, but the unique structure of the story gives the novel a fresh and modern sensibility. In addition, Oakham's remoteness and parochial village church is contrasted with the spiritual changes coming to both England and the rest of Europe, bringing to mind contemporary issues such as Brexit and the refugee crisis. Harvey…has written a densely packed historical novel that never seems dusty or precious, relishing in the psychological intricacies of power and faith but still crackling with suspense and intrigue."―Bookpage
"A poignant tale of superstition and guilt… a sublime and heartrending story, perfect for readers who enjoy impeccably chosen language and a penetrating look at the human condition."―Shelf Awareness
"Hardl...
Readers Top Reviews
Gregory LoselleKindl
I was hoping for a well-written and engrossing book. I got neither. The author is heralded as a stylist on a par with Virginia Woolf in the cover blurbs, but she's no such thing--this is a meandering, clunky, often clumsily-written book, which mires us in a mystery about a death in a medieval village, but then allows nothing much to happen for dozens of pages at a time. Characters are described in piles of detail, not deftly or purposefully, and the narrator's focus--our means of making sense of the sequence of events--wanders and lights on extraneous matters on nearly every page. We're promised a murder-mystery, but the mystery of it never seems to arrive. Instead, we hear the minutiae of the village accumulate around us as the narrator, the village priest, hears confession, fends off the local dean, eats a goose, and ruminates on the weather, the local economy and the collapsed bridge, at which site the dead man disappeared without clear motivation. There is no hook here, no narrative drive and little reason to keep slogging through, so that when the 'reward' of the narrative payoff finally comes, it's a matter of little concern beside the irritation we (or at least I) have felt to get to the end. Had I sat down and pushed through it in one sitting, I might feel differently, but this was a dull and pointless waste of time.
