Land

Although primarily set in Ireland in the mid 1860s, Land by Maggie O'Farrell is in many ways timeless. The novel is primarily the story of a family in Ireland beginning in 1865. Tomás works as a surveyor for the British who occupy the country and want maps of the country updated with latest information. He takes his ten-year-old son, Liam, with him to assist in the project. Then, on the peninsula, Tomás enters a small copse and is never the same again. When Tomás and Liam return home the decision is finally made by Tomás that he will move the family to the peninsula to live. 

As well as telling the story of Tomás and his family over the following years, the novel takes the reader back to the time of The Great Hunger (1845-1852) when food was scarce in Ireland and it is estimated that more than one million people in Ireland died and approximately the same number emigrated to Australia, Canada or the USA. 

The family eventually accepts their life in the country but the children are aware of a supernatural presence in the area, especially near the copse. The author introduces another story that took place perhaps one thousand years earlier when Brith also encountered the mysterious corpse and the events that take place continue their presence when Tomás moves his family to the region. The land is definitely a special place. Six members of the family move to the peninsula but by the end of the novel the family had dispersed with one person remaining.

In Land Maggie O'Farrell combines a look at events in Irish history in the second half of the nineteenth century with a study of a family struggling to survive in harsh times. But throughout the novel the land is the focal point throughout its history, keeping its secrets intact.

Additional Information: 

Learn about the Great Hunger - Ireland's Great Hunger Museum

The Great Hunger - The Irish Memorial

The Great Famine -  UK Parliament

Irish Potato Famine - The History Place 

Some Reviews:

Maggie O'Farrell's Land - Oxford Review of Books

Land - Harvard Review Online 

Maggie O'Farrell flattens 19th century Ireland  into a theme-pub cliche in her new novel - The Conversation 

Land by Maggie O'Farrell review - The Guardian