In the Springtime of the Year

Susan Hill

I was supposed to like this novel. Lisa liked it. Mum liked it. An army of people say it has helped them when they were bereaved and CRUSE, the bereavement counselling people, give it to their new volunteers to help them understand the grieving process.

It's the story of Ruth who is widowed when still very young when her husband is struck by a falling tree. The book starts with Ben's death in spring and covers the period of a year as Ruth starts, very gradually, to heal.

It's a very tender book and quite raw. I wasn't surprised to learn that the author wrote it at a time when she was approximately Ruth's age and had just lost her fiancee, I think through sudden illness. Parts of the book feel as if they have been written as part of Susan Hill's own recovery process.

But I didn't like it. It dragged. The setting is relentlessly rural. And the way Susan Hill has set it in an unspecified time and in an unspecified location irritated me. Apparently, this is a favourite trick of hers and I heard her call it "Susan Hill country" when she was interviewed. Ugh.

Bereavement novels are almost a genre of their own. I can think of several rather similar to this one, and better done too. No, that's unfair because this book isn't badly executed. More readable and easier to like, I think I mean.