The Given World by Melissa Harrison review – a stunning tale of rural life for an era of ecological crisis
Alexandra Harris
Eerie omens haunt this absorbing group portrait set over six months in an English village Sitting stoned on a hill above his village, a young man muses on his place in the world. Connor is proud to have fenced pastures while his mates have been away at university. But it’s overwhelming to think of all their lives being equally real and urgent. Are they part of the same story or separate ones? A phrase comes to him from a book he hated at school: something about “the roar on the other side of sil