A short, spellbinding novel about a WWI veteran finding a way to re-enter--and fully embrace--normal life while spending the summer in an idyllic English village. In J. L. Carr's deeply charged poetic novel, Tom Birkin, a veteran of the Great War and a broken marriage, arrives...
'One of the best books I've ever read' Richard Osman
'Tender and elegant' Guardian
'Unlike anything else in modern English literature' D.J. Taylor, Spectator A damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village...
Two World War I survivors--the one living in the village church carefully planning the restoration of its medieval paintings, the other, camping in a nearby field, in search of a lost grave--meet in the summer of 1920.