博客來2025布克獎入圍作品
戰後的英格蘭，兩個家庭的悲劇
1962年12月，英國的一個鄉村小鎮裡，兩對夫妻又開始了新的一天。艾瑞克．派瑞與妻子艾琳剛從倫敦搬來，艾瑞克是個醫生，今天按照慣例出門探訪病人，把懷孕的妻子單獨留在家裡。艾琳尚未能適應鄉下的生活，心中有諸多不滿，卻只能被困在老房子，徒增夫妻二人之間越來越深的隔閡。
鄰近的農場裡有對夫妻。艾琳．派瑞和這裡的主婦麗塔．席蒙絲是好友。麗塔生性幽默，卻常看起來心事重重，而且她跟艾琳一樣也懷孕了。艾琳雖然盡力讓自己安於當一個農家太太，卻始終忘不了丈夫比爾亟欲拋卻的喧囂過往，那段由比爾父親透過不當的方式圖利，所鋪設出的華麗幻境。
彼時，艾琳與麗塔相遇時，兩人的家庭看上去都還一片和諧。然而，當12月一如既往的寒冷落幕，迎接而來的是眾人都所料未及的大暴雪。同時，這場暴風雪也襲擊了兩家人。
2025布克獎決選作品
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025
Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2025
Winner of the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2025
‘One of the best writers at work today’TELEGRAPH
‘Has an uncanny beauty and depth… A novel that travels into the darkest places of history and the strangest corners of the human mind’GUARDIAN
‘Money, class, love: all of life is in there’SUNDAY TIMES
‘Tender, elegant, soulful and perfect… Superb’SAMANTHA HARVEY, Booker Prize-winning author of Orbital
‘A classic in the making’ELIZABETH DAY, author of How to Fail and One of Us
DECEMBER 1962, THE WEST COUNTRY.
Local doctor Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He’s been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that’s already faltering.
But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards, the two couples find their lives beginning to unravel.
Where do you hide when you can’t leave home? And where, in a frozen world, can you run to?
