Philip worried about her a lot, and they were both united by their loneliness and their lost sense of belonging. Flatlands is an engrossing, slow, tender, raw and heartachingly beautiful story about hardship, friendship and the intense relation to and magnetism of nature. Their paths cross when Freda, clearly under nourished, turns up at his door seeking help with an injured goose. We start this novel with "a patchwork of events" in the memories of an elderly Londoner, remembering her time being taken off to the distant Wash and fens as an evacuee. The two outcasts come together amid the wild beauty of the wetlands, beneath skies filled with migrating birds and crisscrossed by Nazi bombers.

What is beautifully developed, however, is the question of how we might live without religion or war-mongering.

The novel asks the great questions of life, and it affirms the healing power of nature and art–and love. Philip is a sensitive human being, a conscientious objector who left Oxford after having a nervous breakdown and now works for a local farmer.

Perfect for fans of Atonement , this gorgeous coming of age explores the connection between Philip, a conscientious objector, and Freda, a young London evacuee housed by a cruel family. When she finds an injured goose and takes it to the lighthouse where Philip lives, an unlikely friendship develops. The lighthouse setting was inspired by the one that Sir Peter Scott lived in for a while and where he set up his first bird sanctuary. For survivors, memories of the wartime years have become “a patchwork of events etched across our hearts”, thinks Freda.

This is a breathtaking, quietly lovely story of the impact of war, the lifelong memories shared of a brief moment in time, and the bond of friendship. She arrives in the Fens,the harsh bleak flatlands of great natural beauty and wilderness, bitterly cold, windy, and desolate, and taken in by the impoverished Willocks into their dilapidated broken down home. The author’s main purpose is twofold: to explore how the relationship between the two lonely, isolated people changes the life of the younger and to show how the elder, Philip, finally gains a sense of meaning. The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements.

The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. The eerie honking of wintering geese as they lifted their strong muscled necks and angel wings in the mist above the reed beds and frosted fields. One day while exploring the marshlands, she finds an injured goose and approaches reclusive painter Philip Rhayader, who lives in an abandoned lighthouse on the marshlands. You can unsubscribe from our list at any point by changing your preferences, or contacting us directly. Precise in its historical detail and admirable in its evocation of the large skies and isolation of its setting, this is a moving study of an unlikely friendship and the healing power of the natural world.This is my favorite type of book, quiet and introspective, with an ending that is surprising but appropriate. For me, the only thing that worked less well was the dramatic ending involving a famous moment in the war. This book has wide appeal from General Fiction to Women's Fiction, Literary Fiction to Nature writing. Sue Hubbard is revered by her peers and her talent has been compared to that of Colm Toibin, William Trevor and Anne Enright.