In the Place of Fallen Leaves

A Devon village during the hot, dry days of a devastating 1984 summer drought forms the backdrop to the story of thirteen-year-old Alison, youngest child of prosperous farmers, her family, and her friendship with the son of a local viscount

In this piercingly beautiful, fiercely lyrical first novel, narrator Alison Freemantle, 13, awakens to love, sexuality, death, class divisions and the mystery of life on a farm in a Devonshire village during the summer of 1984. Alison's father drinks himself into a stupor on rough cider and neglects her overworked, unhappy mother. Pamela, her older sister who's always preoccupied with dating, seems remote. Her two brothers-Ian, an insomniac chess prodigy, and Tom, a bumpkin who feels closer to animals than to people until he falls swooningly, comically in love-will come to blows over the same girl. Meanwhile, Jonathan, a viscount's son, rescues Alison from drowning, but their platonic friendship is declared off-limits after a barn they explore accidentally catches fire. Through stories told to Alison by her crippled grandmother, the lives of the girl's relatives and of villagers-their tragedies, courtships and crises, over 50 years-are revealed. Pears evokes unspoken bonds of love, a sense of community, organic connectedness to nature in a remarkable debut, a work shot through with moments of great tenderness, beauty and emotional power.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This wonderful first novel tells the story of life beneath the blazing sun in a small rural village in England during the devastating drought of 1984. The long, absorbing plot unfolds through the eyes of Allison, the youngest child of the Freemantle family. Allison lives with her parents, siblings, and grandparents on the family farm, and as the long, blistering summer passes, she weaves a tale about the lives of past, present, and future members of her family and village. By the end of the narrative and the approach of the first rain in many months, Allison's family has been changed forever, each character undergoing a transformation of sorts, ensuring life will never be the same. Pears' gentle and consistently surprising writing style masterfully evokes the parched summer and brings to life the introspective narrator as well as the other idiosyncratic characters that populate this novel. Kathleen Hughes