Waterland by Graham Swift was shortlisted for Man Booker Prize in 1983. It is a book that seeps into you, a bit like the mists across the East Anglian fens where this story is set. It's the summer of 1943 and Henry Crick, the lock-keeper, finds the drowned body of a sixteen-year-old boy. A tragic result of over indulging on the local beer, or murder? It's a mystery that festers for forty years until history teacher Tom Crick, son of that self-same lock-keeper, experiences a marital crisis which, together with the provocation of one of his pupils who slates History as being irrelevant, results in Tom breaking from his syllabus and starts telling stories. Slowly, but surely, we find out about the Crick family, the watery environment of the fens and what really happened during that fateful summer. Sometimes disturbing, but often dreamlike, this is a story worth reading with engaging characters, most predominant of which is the landscape itself. A lesson in combining history, geography and human nature, it's definitely one that stays with you.
My STAR rating: FOUR stars.
Length: 512 print pages.
Price I paid: free, borrowed from my husband.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; MP3 CD; ebook.
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