A Month in the Country

from Jargoneered

Short novel about a young man uncovering a fresco in a village church in the summer of 1920. Tom Birkin, as an old man looks back to the time when he was a WWI survivor with a nervous facial tick and had been deserted by his wife, and when travelled to the village of Oxgodby to uncover a mural fo...

from wandering_star

1920, Yorkshire. A man called Birkin arrives in a small village in the pouring rain, and tramps up to the local church, where he beds down. It turns out that he has been asked to restore a medieval mural there - rather against the will of the vicar. Birkin feels a bit of a misfit when he arrives,...

from TimBazzett

J. L. Carr's novel, A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY, first published in 1980, has quietly become a modern classic. At less than 150 pages, it is indeed a small gem filled with gentle, redemptive moments and a quirky humor that sneaks up on you. Told by Tom Birkin, a shell-shocked veteran of the Great War,...

from RidgewayGirl

Set just after the end of WWI, A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr is Tom Birkin's memories of a summer he spent in the northern village of Oxgodby and how it helped him to recover from the war. Birkin came to restore a painting on the wall of the local church, sleeping in the belfry and trying t...

from NeilDalley

Superb. This is such a wonderfully atmospheric book and evokes a forgotten world of summers long ago. When I started reading it the sun was shining and it fitted the mood of the book so well. The beautiful summer month in the country proves to be a wonderful cure, even if the story is shot throug...