Peculiar Ground

by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Overview

A Kirkus Best Book of 2018

"Unlike anything I’ve read. With its broad scope and its intimacy and exactness, it cuts through the apparatus of life to the vivid moment. Haunting and huge, and funny and sensuous. It’s wonderful."—Tessa Hadley

The Costa Award-winning author of The Pike makes her literary fiction debut with an extraordinary historical novel in the spirit of Wolf Hall and Atonement—a great English country house novel, spanning three centuries, that explores surprisingly timely themes of immigration and exclusion.

It is the seventeenth century and a wall is being raised around Wychwood, transforming the great house and its park into a private realm of ornamental lakes, grandiose gardens, and majestic avenues designed by Mr. Norris, a visionary landscaper. In this enclosed world everyone has something to hide after decades of civil war. Dissenters shelter in the woods, lovers rendezvous in secret enclaves, and outsiders—migrants fleeing the plague—find no mercy.

Three centuries later, far away in Berlin, another wall is raised, while at Wychwood, an erotic entanglement over one sticky, languorous weekend in 1961 is overshadowed by news of historic change. Young Nell, whose father manages the estate, grows up amid dramatic upheavals as the great house is invaded: a pop festival by the lake, a television crew in the dining room, a Great Storm brewing. In 1989, as the Cold War peters out, a threat from a different kind of conflict reaches Wychwood’s walls.

Lucy Hughes-Hallett conjures an intricately structured, captivating story that explores the lives of game keepers and witches, agitators and aristocrats; the exuberance of young love and the pathos of aging; and the way those who try to wall others out risk finding themselves walled in. With poignancy and grace, she illuminates a place where past and present are inextricably linked by stories, legends, and history—and by one patch of peculiar ground.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062684219
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/09/2018
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	972,862
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author of The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize, the Political Book Awards Political Biography of the Year and the Costa Biography Award and was chosen by The Sunday Times as the biography of the decade.

Her novel Peculiar Ground was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. Her other books include Fabulous, a collection of short stories, and the cultural histories Cleopatra and Heroes: Saviours, Traitors and Supermen.

She is a widely respected critic and was chair of the judges of the 2021 International Booker Prize.

Editorial Reviews

★ 12/01/2017
The Costa Award-winning author of The Pike makes her literary fiction debut with a thoroughly engaging novel about people in two different ages but in one place. The times are 1663–65 and 1961–89, both periods of wrenching change. In 1663, good King Charles II is newly restored to his throne; the Puritans are ousted. In 1961, Puritan attitudes are taking it on the chin; even monogamy suffers. By 1989, another generation has taken over, homosexuality is no longer taboo, and the Berlin Wall falls. Dozens of people populate these pages, shaping the narrative, but there is another player. The great manor of Wychwood and its landmarks play key roles throughout. Family names persist across three centuries among the estate's servitors and tenants. The many stories in this wonderful book are all variations on the theme of change and of the holding power of place over transient circumstance. Hughes-Hallett (Gabriele D'Anunzio) is a master storyteller. Her prose is a treasure—evocative, rich, engaging. VERDICT This book is already a hit overseas and will be here, too. History lovers, but even more, lovers of good fiction, will gobble it up. [See Prepub Alert, 7/31/17.]—David Keymer, Cleveland

Library Journal

Lucy Hughes-Hallett, prizewinning biographer and cultural historian, here turns her talents to fiction with a first novel, Peculiar Ground. The story begins in 1663 as the Royalist earl of Woldingham returns to his grand estate, Wychwood, following his exile during the upheaval of the English Civil War and the subsequent periods of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. In his absence, his cousin Cecily presided over the place, thus keeping it in the family. Now, even with the Stuarts back on the throne and his house and lands returned, the earl feels uneasy and has caused a great wall to be erected around the entire estate. His hope is to create his own little Eden, and to this end he has employed an ingenious landscape designer, John Norris, who is pushing forward plans for two great avenues of trees, a sequence of three linked lakes, and a prodigious fountain. Also in his employ are Robert Rose, an architect; George Goodyear, head forester; a man simply called Lane, the estate steward; and another, Armstrong, whose special care is game: deer and pheasant, chiefly.

But all is not well. A group of radical religious dissenters continue their heterodox worship in a meetinghouse on the grounds, a structure that has been built over a relict of the Romans, a mosaic depicting two boys with joined hands. The image possesses great, if highly mysterious, import. An old woman, accompanied by a young, rustic boy, flits through the woods. She is Meg Leafield and is thought to be a witch. One of the earl’s young sons drowns. Cecily dresses up Meg’s young companion in clothes similar to the dead boy's, to whom he bears a striking likeness. Something very strange happens -- and with that we leave the seventeenth century for some 300 pages.

The story next makes landfall in 1961, as we find that the estate has new owners, the Rossiters, whose son has also drowned. And, just to continue on this parallel track, the place is peopled by the descendants of the earl of Woldingham’s men. Once again we have a Goodyear and an Armstrong. A Hugo Lane is the steward or land agent and lives on the estate with his wife and children. An old woman called Meg is in circulation, up to a lot of witchy business in the shape of herbal nostrums and charms. A house party finds among the guests another Rose (this one a restaurateur, designer, and libertine). There is also an Anthony Blunt−style spy, a freelance journalist, a luscious young siren, and an enfant terrible. There are carryings-on. The wall surrounding the parklands still stands -- but everyone's attention is drawn to another one just going up in Berlin.

The novel goes on to give full throttle to the theme of walls and continues to dangle the notion that there is a parallel or even a connection between events of the distant past and those of the present. We follow the lives of the twentieth-century characters over ensuing years, the story making further stops in 1973 (an invitation-only pop concert on the walled estate) and 1989 (and the fall of the Berlin Wall), before returning to the seventeenth century, to 1665, just in time for the bubonic plague, the wall in this moment serving to keep fleeing Londoners, nearby villagers, and their attendant contagion out of the estate.

In the novel’s favor, I can say that it shows a fine sense of time and place in each venue, and there are some terrific set pieces: a battle against a raging fire, the experience and calamitous outcome of the storm dubbed the Great Wind of 1987 (here set in 1989), and the evacuation of plague-stricken London. A number of images are truly arresting, one being a waterfront street ending at a great wall of steel: the vast hull of a ship rising to inconceivable heights. There are, too, a couple of excellently drawn self- important characters, though their time on the stage is sadly brief. All in all, however, the story has an awful rattle of devices: the recurrent theme of walls, random echoes of the past, some portentous stories-within-stories, and that truly irksome mosaic -- which is meant, it is suggested, to explain . . . something. Rather than pulling the story together, these literary maneuvers serve to diminish it, making it serve as a showcase, while the plot itself becomes a litter of miscellaneous parts. Perhaps next time -- and I hope there will be one -- Hughes-Hallett will leave these literary exercises behind and get on with the story.

Katherine A. Powers reviews books widely and has been a finalist for the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle. She is the editor of Suitable Accommodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942–1963.

Reviewer: Katherine A. Powers

The Barnes & Noble Review

11/06/2017
Author of an acclaimed biography of the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, Hughes-Hallet offers an enjoyable, sprawling epic debut about an enclosed paradise. Populated by a large cast, its subject is singular: Wynchwood, a lavish English country estate that weathers centuries of upheavals, from civil war to its transformation into a theme park for the aristocrat-obsessed. The novel concentrates on two historical eras. The 17th-century scenes, which bookend the novel, focus on John Norris, a prim landscape architect with extravagant Eden-like visions for the estate. Magnificent though his designs may be, the outside world creeps in, notably in the form of tragic accidents and the plague that ravaged England in 1665. These sections, which include flourishes of historical and cultural detail (witchcraft, folklore, secret religious sects), paint a vivid picture. The novel’s middle episodes, which check in on the fast-living set congregating at Wynchwood during key moments throughout the Cold War, are the highlight: consistently witty, they are reminiscent of another country house saga, Alain Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child. Hughes-Hallett effectively expands the domestic drama to touch on class resentment, religious conflict, and international affairs. Her Wynchwood is a remarkable, ambivalent creation, “at once a sanctuary and place of internment,” and readers will delight at strolling its grounds under her guidance. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Full of drama, vivid characters, wit, gorgeous writing and fascinating botanical, religious and social detail.... Peculiar Ground, with its witches and aristocrats, its highly educated men, women and children and its gradations of every conceivable social type between upstairs and downstairs, is a grand spectacle.”
— New York Times Book Review

“Sophisticated and erudite…. Ms. Hughes-Hallett is a natural heir to A.S. Byatt, delivering a densely patterned novel that shimmers with human interest as it probes our cultural story.” — Wall Street Journal

“Dazzling.... A brilliant, ambitious mixture of actual history and creative invention.” — Boston Globe

“Rather more than your usual English country house novel.  Think of it as a saga of a place depicted in gorgeous prose…. With its clever juxtaposition of past and present and its mediation of time and change, Peculiar Ground is reminiscent of Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Thoroughly engaging…. Hughes-Hallett is a master storyteller. Her prose is a treasure—evocative, rich, engaging.” — Library Journal, starred review

“Unlike anything I’ve read. With its broad scope and its intimacy and exactness, it cuts through the apparatus of life to the vivid moment. Haunting and huge, and funny and sensuous. It’s wonderful.” — Tessa Hadley

“Vast in scope but intimate in its details. A first novel stunning for both its historical sweep and its elegant prose.” — Kirkus, starred review

“An enjoyable, sprawling epic debut…. Hughes-Hallett effectively expands the domestic drama to touch on class resentment, religious conflict, and international affairs. Her Wychwood is a remarkable, ambivalent creation… and readers will delight at strolling its grounds under her guidance.” — Publishers Weekly

“Give this to readers who enjoy the works of A.S. Byatt.” — Booklist

“Peculiar Ground is so clever and beautifully written, it gripped me from start to end. I abandoned work and family to finish it.” — Roddy Doyle

“Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s novel is immensely vivid, full of rich and deeply imagined life, and glowing with energy. Her Wychwood estate is utterly real, her characters (both seventeenth- and twentieth-century) entirely convincing, and the story moves with a masterful assurance. There’s a calm virtuosity in the language that I admired a great deal. I just enjoyed it so very much.” — Philip Pullman

From the Publisher

Rather more than your usual English country house novel.  Think of it as a saga of a place depicted in gorgeous prose…. With its clever juxtaposition of past and present and its mediation of time and change, Peculiar Ground is reminiscent of Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Peculiar Ground is so clever and beautifully written, it gripped me from start to end. I abandoned work and family to finish it.

Roddy Doyle

Unlike anything I’ve read. With its broad scope and its intimacy and exactness, it cuts through the apparatus of life to the vivid moment. Haunting and huge, and funny and sensuous. It’s wonderful.

Tessa Hadley

Full of drama, vivid characters, wit, gorgeous writing and fascinating botanical, religious and social detail.... Peculiar Ground, with its witches and aristocrats, its highly educated men, women and children and its gradations of every conceivable social type between upstairs and downstairs, is a grand spectacle.”

New York Times Book Review

Give this to readers who enjoy the works of A.S. Byatt.

Booklist

Sophisticated and erudite…. Ms. Hughes-Hallett is a natural heir to A.S. Byatt, delivering a densely patterned novel that shimmers with human interest as it probes our cultural story.

Wall Street Journal

Dazzling.... A brilliant, ambitious mixture of actual history and creative invention.

Boston Globe

Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s novel is immensely vivid, full of rich and deeply imagined life, and glowing with energy. Her Wychwood estate is utterly real, her characters (both seventeenth- and twentieth-century) entirely convincing, and the story moves with a masterful assurance. There’s a calm virtuosity in the language that I admired a great deal. I just enjoyed it so very much.

Philip Pullman

Sophisticated and erudite…. Ms. Hughes-Hallett is a natural heir to A.S. Byatt, delivering a densely patterned novel that shimmers with human interest as it probes our cultural story.

Wall Street Journal

Give this to readers who enjoy the works of A.S. Byatt.

Booklist

★ 2017-10-17
An award-winning historian (Gabriele D'Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War, 2013, etc.) makes her fiction debut with a story vast in scope but intimate in its details.The year is 1663. England's civil war has ended. Newly returned from exile, royalist Arthur Fortescue, the Earl of Woldingham, has hired the landscaper John Norris to turn his ancestral home into a private paradise. As he is drawn ever deeper into the life of Wychwood, Norris discovers that the Earl's plan to enclose his new gardens, fountains, and tree-lined avenues within a wall will be a disaster for the religious dissenters who live and worship in the forest around the estate. The Earl's land, Norris learns, is crisscrossed with secret paths used by people scorned and abused for their faith. When Hughes-Hallett brings the narrative 300 years into the future without first resolving this issue, the shift feels abrupt. But it soon becomes clear that the temporal leap makes perfect sense: the issue of the wall is unresolved because it is irresolvable. Who owns the land, who has right of way, what the very wealthy owe everyone else: these are questions that never go away. Hughes-Hallett explores how the past persists in other—more personal—ways as well. Relationships between masters and servants recapitulate themselves across generations. Family tragedies repeat with slight variations. Wychwood remains a world unto itself even as people come and go and the property changes hands. Time feels like a circle, and the novel brings us to 1989 before taking us back to the 17th century. There are multiple narrators and perspectives here, but the text never feels cacophonous because each voice is so exquisitely limned. Hughes-Hallett's choice to turn minor players into major characters is especially satisfying; of course those who rely upon the wealthy and powerful must be canny observers of the wealthy and powerful. The novel is a pleasure to read for the loveliness of its language. It's also a timely meditation on walls, on what they keep in and what they keep out.A first novel stunning for both its historical sweep and its elegant prose.

Kirkus Reviews