The Hollow Land
Jane Gardam
2014, 158 pages
Fiction
The Hollow Land is a series of linked stories about Harry Bateman, who is a little boy the first time his family comes from London to stay in an old farmhouse called Light Trees owned by the Teesdale family.
Harry and the Teesdales’ son Bell get into a number of scrapes, such as getting stuck in an old silver mine shaft (hence the hollowness of the land) and lost in a blizzard while they were off “on an icicle ride.”
Author Jane Gardam has a knack for rendering something as simple as a scruffy hillside beautiful: “They began to climb the far side of the cleft, pulling themselves up by bushes and rocks. A sheep racketed away from them from behind some gorse bushes and once a family of grouse shot up from under their feet making a noise like wooden rattles.”
Vivid descriptions, Cumbrian dialog and seasonal events – blackberry time, sheep shows, etc. – infuse the book with a deep sense of place.
Harry tells Granny Crack, who says she’s never seen London, “It’s all right . . . . Up here’s better. More seems to go on up here.” As the generations grow they stay or return, even as the world changes. Gardam transports readers to a place where, as Bell reassures Harry when he’s worrying about things changing, “Summat’ll fetch up. . . . See what tomorrow brings. It of times brings summat.” Timeless advice for any kind of trouble. Like all good books, The Hollow Land speaks of things beyond the words on its pages.
Deb Baker
Concord Public Library
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