Flatlands

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He teaches her and inspires her to become who she really is, despite whatever poor background she was offered or hardships she will encounter. She forms a very lovely and quiet friendship with Peter, a young man in his 20s who is trying to make sense of his own feelings about who he is, who he loves, and his objections to the war.

After a railroad trip, she is taken up in the flatlands of Britain by a family paid by the government to shelter her. One dad in the story from the little girl's neighborhood even says, "The government was never interested in helping my kids before. Willock, where Freda is expected to care for their son, work for what little food she is given, and to be subjected to Mr.It is Philip who teaches and educates her about birds, the arts, poetry, culture and more, a pivotal time of change that will open up opportunities that would otherwise never have been open to her. He is increasingly troubled by the safety he’s chosen when it becomes clear to him that stopping Hitler is a moral imperative. For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued a number of classic nature and historical novels. Flatlands is a haunting and lyrical novel about loneliness and the compensations of the natural world, art and unlikely friendships. It reminds me that singular acts of love can do more to influence life than all the horrors of hate can do to oppress it.

The two find each other when caring for an injured goose and together make decisions about their future.

Years later, at eighty seven, Freda reflects on her past and understands the reasoning for her billet's treatment of her and other life experiences. As the seventy–fifth anniversary celebration of the Dunkirk evacuation approaches, she finds herself flooded by her own memories of that period and she reflects on how her experiences have impacted her throughout her life. My one criticism of the novel is that there are frequent, Sudden time jumps which make the story fragmented and difficult to settle down to read. The author has chosen not to make these time, jumps clear by labelling chapters for example, and they came as a surprise to me. Most will not hold a perfect hand in life’s poker game, but serendipitous happenings can propel us forward into our futures if we’re willing to give each other a chance.

To become a subscriber to Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader’s Quarterly Magazine, please visit our subscriptions page. My sincere thank you to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this enchanting novel.

For survivors, memories of the wartime years have become “a patchwork of events etched across our hearts”, thinks Freda. The relationship between Philip and Freda feels slight and underdeveloped, given its significance for both their later lives. The story is told by means of flashbacks and present time stories, told by the narrator as she becomes elderly and lives in an old peoples home. I don’t think sailing skills one learned at age twelve—which have gone unpractised for a decade or more—could be applied with the readiness Philip demonstrates. Flatlands is an engrossing, slow, tender, raw and heartachingly beautiful story about hardship, friendship and the intense relation to and magnetism of nature.