This book was a definite slow burn for me. I was excited when I heard that O’Farrell had a new book out this year. I’ve read her two most recent before this – Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait, as well as an older title, The Hand that First Held Mine, and enjoyed all three immensely. Land got off to a slow start for me though. The first few times I read it, I found myself dozing off. But I was enjoying the book! My sleepiness could just as easily be attributed to a busy June and too much time in the sun. O’Farrell’s writing, especially at the beginning of the book, has a dreamy, hazy quality. The descriptions are lush and beautiful and she spends a lot of time setting us in place.
We begin with Thomas and Liam, father and son. Thomas is at work on a project to map the whole country of Ireland in the year 1865. We are not long out from the time of the Great Famine and Thomas is in the employ of the British, working under the orders of British soldiers. He is a silent, detailed man who takes pride in his work. When first Liam and then Thomas stumble into a mysterious, unmapped copse on a remote peninsula, it sets the course of their whole family on end. Thomas exits the copse a changed man. Liam is terrified by the change in his father and it seems up to him to finish the mapping and get them home.
From there, we leap backwards in time. O’Farrell takes us back to almost prehistoric times where we meet a young girl and her dog. This girl is the daughter of an outsider to their tribe, a man who came from a separate, nomadic tribe, and has since, seemingly, left her and her mother and her baby brother. We get an overview of this girl’s life, speeding forward through time and back to Liam’s present day, watching the copse as time moves forward around it. We see Thomas back in Dublin, bringing his entire family – two more daughters and a pregnant wife – to this remote peninsula.
O’Farrell’s narration is both intimate and distanced. It is omniscient, showing us the character’s most private thoughts while also revealing to us details and connections that they themselves will never know. We get to see some of Thomas’ strange history and the connection between him and his wife. We watch the four children grow up, each affected by their father’s unexpected choices in different ways. Each drawn to and repelled by this land that their family ties their life to.
It’s a strange sort of story because it’s both intimately about this family but it’s also, even more so, about this particular spot of land and what it may or may not hold. I found myself getting more and more invested as the novel progressed and as the individual children grew up and became more clear to me as characters. This also coincides with more action happening on the page and I found myself racing through the final section, eager to find out what would happen to each member of this family. I’ve found O’Farrell’s endings to be never quite what I expect, but in a satisfying manner, and she didn’t disappoint here with certain parts bringing me close to tears.
In the end, this is an immigrant story, a family story, a tale of trauma passed down through countless generations, and into the land itself.
Karissa Reads Books 