Book description
It is 1847, northern England, and Charles Weightman has been given
the unenviable task of overseeing the flooding of the Forge Valley and
evicting its lingering inhabitants. Weightman is heartily resented by
these locals, and he himself is increasingly unconvinced both of the
wisdom of his appointment and of the integrity and motives of the
company men who posted him there. He finds some solace, however, in
his enigmatic neighbour, Mary Latimer. Caring for her mad sister, Mary
is also an outsider, and a companionship develops between the two of
them which offers them both some comfort and support in their mutual isolation.
As winter closes steadily in and as the waters begin to rise in the
Forge Valley, it becomes increasingly evident that the man-made deluge
cannot be avoided; not by the locals desperate to save their homes,
nor by the reluctant agent of their destruction, Weightman himself.
In a masterful new novel, Edric captures powerful human emotions
with grace and precision. The hauntingly resonant backdrop to this
story of David and Goliath marks Edric's dramatic return to historical
literary fiction.
Robert Edric was born in 1956. In his writing career, he has been a
winner of the 1985 James Tait Black Prize (for
Winter Garden
), a runner-up for the 1986 Guardian Fiction Prize (for
A New Ice Age
)
,
a runner-up for the 2001 WH Smith Literary Award (for
The Book of the Heathen
), and in 2002, a Booker longlister (for
Peacetime
). After
The Song Cycle Trilogy,
his critically acclaimed series of crime novels set in Hull,
Gathering the Water
heralds his return to historical literary fiction and was also
longlisted for the 2006 Booker Prize. His latest novel,
The Kingdom
of Ashes
, is now available from Doubleday.
