Book description
The village of Tanygraig on the Welsh-English border is the setting
for this passionate novel of love and its consequences. Beti, the
beautiful and wilful daughter of a pub landlord, is pursued by two
men: Llew, her aggressive, red-haired cousin, and Evan, the dreamy
miller and would-be poet. She has to make a choice but it's not her
future alone that depends on her decision. She and Tanygraig are
positioned precariously on borders of class, nation, language, and
changing times. In this enduring novel by Geraint Goodwin, first
published in 1936, Wales is associated with tradition and stability,
England connotes modernity and movement. Beti is conscious of living
at a temporal border: 'The old way of things was ending; she had come
at the end of one age and the beginning of another. Wales would be the
last to go but it was going...'
Geraint Goodwin was born in Wales in 1903. He started writing at an
early age, his first success being at a local eisteddfod. As a young man
he made his living as a journalist in London, where he wrote his first
book Conversations with George Moore, and followed it by Call by
Yesterday. It was not, however, until he reached the age of thirty-two
that he published his first work of fiction. The Heyday in the Blood
made a considerable impression on the crtitics, and its author was
hailed as a second Thomas Hardy. Three more books, The White Farm, a
collection of short stories Watch for the Morning and Come Michaelmas
followed, the last of which was written during an increasing struggle
against ill-health. His untimely death in 1941 brought to an end a
brilliant literary career which had barely time to begin. He was married
and had two children, a girl and a boy.
