Harvest by Jim Crace
Jim Crace published his first book in 1986, and since then has released a number of highly regarded novels, including 1997’s Quarantine (shortlisted for the Man Booker in that year), and 1999’s Being Dead. He might have other great novels besides these two, but I hold my hand up and admit these are the only two I’d previously read. I thought both were fantastic, which makes me wonder now why I’ve not tracked down his other novels. There has been some reluctance in me, I think, the feeling that maybe those other novels of his maybe won’t be as good as Quarantine or Being Dead. When Crace announced his retirement from fiction I felt it as a sad thing, that we were losing someone with an original and startling voice. Then his possibly final novel, Harvest, was longlisted for the Booker, and I returned to the sometimes strange world of Jim Crace’s fiction. As summer comes to a close, and Walter Thirsk begins to prepare for winter. He li...