Published in 1938, this recently re-issued classic is rather wonderful.
Set in, what feels like, frontier Florida, the landscape of the novel is vibrant, humming with nature. There are panthers, wolves, bears, snakes, all fighting for survival in a mesmerising, kaleidoscopic, and harsh world. Read with our climate-change angst, it’s impossible not to wince as the characters are forced to bring down another bear or wolf or buck, but we also understand these characters are killing (mostly) for their own survival.
The novel’s core is a compassionate account of one family’s struggles, their relationships, and a particular focus on Jody: a tender, nature-loving boy who struggles with the brutal finality of a gun but dreams constantly of his Ma’s delicious meals. The yearling refers to the fawn he rescues, or perhaps the fawn rescues him, as his boyhood is punctuated by the idiocy of adults and some terrible natural catastrophes.
The strange American accents are rendered skilfully by Rawlings but take a little while to get used to on the page.
I liked this book a lot. It’s an intensely vivid, savage, blistering story of subsistence, utterly life-affirming, and a real page-turner.
Like the sound of it?