All Among the Barley

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Melissa Harrison is the author of the novels Clay and At Hawthorn Time, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize, and one work of non-fiction, Rain, which was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. It’s very much in the space you’ve described above, the sense of lives intersecting in ways that give rise to significant, unintended consequences. The novel’s epilogue is very affecting, a section in which seventy-year-old Edie contemplates her current situation – a life marked by events that took place during Constance’s visit. Our barley was well along now, flaxen from a distance and with the beards tipping over almost as we watched. Although the book is set in rural England I felt this was a microcosm of what was happening all over the country at this time and is indeed is relevant today.

Connie’s character is well drawn and her likeability maintained, despite the fact that, evidently, her mindset is one for which the author herself has very little time. They may not be refined, but here there is good, wholesome food such as may be found on every English farm where butter is churned by hand, cheese is made, and bread is daily baked. She’s the object of a fair bit of unwelcome attention from Alf, a somewhat pushy boy from a neighbouring farm.

Set in rural East Anglia in 1933 the book invites us into the daily lives of 14 year old Edie and her family who live at and work Wych Farm. There is a lyricism in Harrison’s descriptions of the environment which manages to be both detailed and evocative.

In the 1930s, disaffected by socialism and appalled by the possibility of another war, he became an outspoken supporter of Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Melissa Harrison's powerful third novel is a sympathetic portrayal of a mind unravelling in the context of a community that is likewise losing its way. One of the best Christmas memories I have is when Judy (the yellow Labrador) curled up on the foot of my bed Christmas Eve. As Constance begins to spend more time with the Mathers, her views on certain political and financial principles begin to emerge.I struggled from time to time with Constance and wondered how plausible that scenario was but given the lack of ease of communication at that time and potentially a naivety in rural attitudes it could be that I cannot comprehend the reality of that time and place. Deeply evocative of a historical moment - rural England between the wars, before mechanisation - it is also, unmistakably, about questions that press hard on us now, above all the dangers of nationalism, and how easily a love of place can be corrupted into something dark and exclusionary.

Like two recent books I have read – “There, There” and “In a Mad and Furious City” ends with what seems an unnecessary dramatic finale.

We should have proper import controls to protect our native English formers – it’s the only way…’ (p. All of these things appeared to be particularly daunting to Edie, as a teenager, facing a future which seemed quite bleak, even though she was told that she was bright and different and could take a different path to her mother. I loved the appearance of Edmund, the corncrake, a species which has been endangered due to the loss of habitat brought about by changes in farming methods. Although this novel is set just before WW2 I was transported back to the very early 1960s when as a 7yr old girl I lived in a village and walked with my little brother to school through the fields and orchard. For Edie, who must soon face the unsettling pressures of adulthood, the glamorous and worldly outsider appears to be a godsend.

Harrison cleverly makes Connie attractive and only gradually allows the insinuating creep of her nasty ideologies to permeate the narrative.

All Among the Barley comes to an abrupt and shocking denouement, at least as brutal as Tarka’s slaughter by hounds, but it is the village of Elmbourne, the meadows and lanes that Edie loves so fiercely, that linger in the memory. Again, it’s all very subtlety done, woven into the fabric of the story to avoid it feeling too overt. Farming practices, wildlife and nature create a strong, vibrant picture in 'All Among the Barley' which really immersed me as a reader. Edie is also conscious of mysterious powers and magical signs, and for much of the book we are not sure how much faith to put in her perceptions. When it comes, the to-be-expected discrediting of Connie is brutal and shocking, and I was disappointed by its harshness.