Reservoir 13: WINNER OF THE 2017 COSTA NOVEL AWARD
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By Jon McGregor
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2 reviews
WINNER OF THE 2017 COSTA NOVEL AWARD
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR AN FT BOOK OF THE YEAR A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR From the award-winning author of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. Reservoir 13 tells the story of many lives haunted by one family’s loss. Midwinter in the early years of this century. A teenage girl on holiday has gone missing in the hills at the heart of England. The villagers are called up to join the search, fanning out across the moors as the police set up roadblocks and a crowd of news reporters descends on their usually quiet home. Meanwhile, there is work that must still be done: cows milked, fences repaired, stone cut, pints poured, beds made, sermons written, a pantomime rehearsed. The search for the missing girl goes on, but so does everyday life. As it must. An extraordinary novel of cumulative power and grace, Reservoir 13 explores the rhythms of the natural world and the repeated human gift for violence, unfolding over thirteen years as the aftershocks of a stranger’s tragedy refuse to subside. WINNER OF THE 2017 COSTA NOVEL AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE ‘A rare and dazzling feat of art’ George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo ‘McGregor writes with such grace and precision, with love even, about who and where we are, that he leaves behind all other writers of his generation’ Sarah Hall, author of The Wolf Border ‘Reservoir 13 is quite extraordinary – the way it’s structured, the way it rolls, the skill with which Jon McGregor lets the characters breathe and age’ Roddy Doyle, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha TweetReviews
Read with Gloucester Book Club. Oh my! What a wonderful book! So beautifully crafted with a minimalist style, building tension as it went along! If you’re looking for a typical crime novel, this won’t be it. Yes a 13 year old girl vanishes at the start but mainly it’s about the inhabitants of a village in the Peak District with snippets of their lives, where nothing much seems to happen but yet everything happens. It’s about the passage of time and change, and the cycle of nature.
It’s like listening to The Archers, comforting and soothing! Be prepared for many many characters - indeed one of our members counted 82!
The podcasts ‘The Reservoir Tapes’ which are a prequel to the book can also be listened to on catch up on Radio 4, and a book is also available. Thoroughly recommend listening to those alongside reading the book. They add so much to the story.
Enjoy!
Such a beautifully written book and not at all what I expected. It was like reading a very subtle, lyrical soap opera as the years passed and peoples lives plodded on in quite an ordinary way. The sadness and tensions caused by the missing girl gave an extra edge to it as the repercussions continued to run through the life of the community but essentially it's a book about the repetative, cyclical, ordinariness of life and how all our lives are connected by apparently unconnected events. I enjoyed the structure of the novel and the playing with the 13 theme: she was 13 years old, there are 13 reservoirs and 13 years covered in 13 chapters. A book to be savoured.
