Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12941 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders describes the 17th-century plague that is carried from London to a small Derbyshire village by an itinerant tailor. As villagers begin, one by one, to die, the rest face a choice. Do they flee their village in the hope of outrunning the plague or do they stay? The lord of the manor and his family pack and leave. The rector, Michael Mompellion, argues forcefully that the villagers should stay put, isolate themselves from neighbouring towns and villages and prevent the contagion from spreading. His oratory wins the day and the village turns in on itself. Cocooned from the outside world and ravaged by the disease, its inhabitants struggle to retain their humanity in the face of the disaster. The narrator, a young widow called Anna Frith, is one of the few who succeeds. Together with Mompellion and his wife Elinor, she tends the dying and battles to prevent her fellow villagers from descending into drink, violence and superstition. All is complicated by the intense, unacknowledgeable feelings she develops for both the rector and his wife. Year of Wonderssometimes seems anachronistic as historical fiction. Anna and Mompellion can occasionally appear to be modern sensibilities unaccountably transferred to 17th-century Derbyshire. However there is no mistaking the power of Brooks's imagination or the skill with which she constructs her story of ordinary people struggling to cope with extraordinary circumstances.--Nick Rennison

The Guardian, 14th July 2001
'A staggering fictional debut that matches journalistic accumulation of detail to natural narrative flair.'

Daily Mail, July 20th 2001
'A very well written, atmospheric account of what-might-have-happened...gripping.'

Customer Reviews

Wonderful and tragic
A marvellous book, describing the sufferings of this plague-ravaged village, based on the experience of the real village of Eyam in Derbyshire in cutting itself off from the outside world to avoid the spread of the disease (though I understand that in Eyam, one third of the population died, whereas two thirds die in this novel). Most of the characters are quite interesting, though perhaps some did come across as a little stereotyped. The differing ways in which they cope with the disaster around them provoke interesting reflections on the human condition. I found the subsequent life of the central character a bit implausible, though it is true that history can throw up life stories that would make the most imaginative novelist blush. A great novel.

What a book!
I will be brutally honest and say that my first thoughts as I began reading this book, was shear horror! I just thought, that with so much rubbish going on in the world, why would you want to read something so morbid and depressing. Lets face it, no light at all!!!
Geraldine Brooks is incredibly expressive and leaves nothing to the imagination. Her descriptions are wonderful and you can imagine exactly how things must have been. You really feel like you are living through the plague with the characters. Because it was a bookclub book, I pressed on and I have to admit, could not put it down. I am so glad I did, because it turned out to be a fabulous read - Although not for the feint hearted! Am am really missing it now that it is finished!
Would now love a visit to the village of Eyam!

beautfully evoked and intense
Geraldine Brooks copes with great assurance (considering it is a first novel) with the difficult challenge of making an attractive novel out of such an apparently gloomy theme. This is history with all the mud, blood, sweat and tears present; but also with tenderness, courage, and a deep love of the Peak District countryside. She wears lightly what must have been considerable research, and the picture of village life feels utterly real.

Like every other reviewer (and probably reader) I was thrown by the ending. Brooks seems to have fallen for the belief that a 'twist' will improve a novel; 250 pages of thoughtful hyper-realism are followed by 25 pages of breathless melodrama that seem to have come from a different book altogether.

But apart from that, I found this book both fascinating and moving. It has persuaded me that I must visit Eyam and experience the atmosphere for myself - and what novel could do more?