This Booker-long listed debut is an elemental, contemporary rural noir steeped
in the literature and legend of the Yorkshire landscape and its
medieval history. It is the British version of the film "Winter's Bone", a book of rural poverty and living off the grid that starts of well enough and quickly goes downhill from there.
Doncaster is the nearest orienting location, the
geographic heart of the ancient kingdom from which the novel takes its
name. Daniel and his sister Cathy live in a house they and their father John have
built with their bare hands near the main East Coast rail line. The thing that is missing from their efforts at happiness is that they do not actually own the land. They are squatting in the woods of a vast estate, but the owner wants something from John that he does not want to give, and worse yet, the two sons, used to getting exactly what they want and when they want it, start to eye Cathy. Much like a number of movies that I have seen, the voice in my head yelling "Get Out" was not far astray from what could have averted the disaster ahead. Beautifully written and tragically ended.
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