Though I am only halfway through, I am thoroughly enjoying Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel, Land. I am so captivated by O’Farrell’s writing and Dane Whyte O’Hara’s narration of the audio edition that I am unwilling to rush through it, rewinding often to listen again to a description or conversation.
The first part of the story is set in Dublin and on the coast of Ireland just after the Great Hunger. Tomás is a father and a cartographer working for the English, the “Red Coats,” updating the maps of the colonized territory. He wants his eldest, scholarly Liam, to follow in his footsteps, though it is his feisty daughter, Enda, who would like to accompany him.
We get to know the rest of the family: Phina, his wife, also an orphan of the famine; young Rose, attached to her mother; and eventually a new baby, Eugene. The reader learns about the troubled times through each character’s introspection and reflection.
And it is a complicated time! The potato blight brought starvation and death, British colonialism fostered poverty, and emigration thinned the population, leaving farms untended and villages skeletal remains of their past vibrancy. The complex role of the Catholic church in Irish society is expressed in its effects on various members of the family, from embracing it as a novitiate to being traumatized and rejecting it.
The descriptions of place – home, hearth, hills, cities and coast – are lush with details. O’Farrell intimately involves the reader in the setting: Phina’s thoughts about her past while combing the tangles out of her daughter’s hair; 10-year-old Liam’s insecurities after losing sight of his father while assisting in the field; Eugene’s unique non-verbal impressions and experiences.
A second storyline is set millennia before the 1860s, in the ancient time of hill forts, druids, and wanderers before the Romans arrived. So far, the plotline has small objects and tentative bloodlines that interact and overlap, exposing how different – and how similar – modern times are to prehistory.
Even if the second half of the novel does not hold up, it is worth investing the time to travel to O’Farrell’s Irish peninsula to savor the rhythms of the language and the intricacies of history for at least part of the journey.
Liza Bernard is a voracious reader who enjoys both printed volumes and audiobooks. Formerly co-owner of the Norwich Bookstore, she maintains her connections with readers and writers as the Programming and Marketing Librarian at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock, Vermont.
