The Gravedigger

Shy middle-aged gravedigger Henry Bale accepts his solitary life in the English hamlet of Chalk, until the arrival of twenty-seven-year-old teacher Caroline Ford brings thoughts of love, relationships, separation, and loss.

Henry Bale, a bashful middle-aged gravedigger in the English hamlet of Chalk takes center stage in Smith's impressive debut. Henry is nervous about his own demise; he lives alone, the kind of man who fades into the background while listening to talk about the dearly departed. But his solitary life receives an unexpected jolt after meeting the new schoolteacher, 27-year-old Caroline Ford. Henry finds it unbelievable that Caroline is attracted to him and so begins to dwell on their eventual separation. "Everything made sense, alone. Before Caroline, Henry had only occupied space, like a headstone marking a hole." The townspeople watch the relationship unfold, morbidly curious, and "They were on him like flies after the separation," when Henry withdraws again until he uncovers a dark festering secret in one of the local parishes and makes a choice that could twist his quiet life. Smith's well-wrought prose beautifully captures the tone of an English village and the awakening of a man whose livelihood depends on death but whose fear keeps him from living.
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Henry Bale, a middle-aged and roughly handsome English gravedigger, has lived in the small town of Chalk his entire life. Following in his father’s footsteps, he is a reliable and stoic digger of graves and has lived the first half of his life as though half asleep. His only companion, a Jack Russell terrier, dies at the opening of this novel, surprising Henry with the hole the small dog’s absence leaves in his life. Painfully shy, Henry has few friends and no romantic interests until Caroline Ford, a young and attractive elementary-school teacher, breezes into town from the larger, neighboring city of Brighton. Caroline’s presence turns the whole town of Chalk on its head, and a staggering and surprising romance ignites between her and Henry. A story of love and loss, this novel is part romance and part coming-of-age tale for a middle-aged man. Henry emerges from his shell as Caroline’s presence awakens his passion for his own life. The somewhat laborious pace of the novel mimics the character’s own ponderousness in this genuine and evocative read. --Julie Hunt