Books in brief: A Kind Man

 

    Another brief post about a brief book, but the relative shortness of Susan Hill's A Kind Man is part of its quality. This is a precise and powerful novel, one of restraint and self-containment, quite spell-binding in its spareness.

    It's set in a northern town in the Depression years of the 1930s, but there's nothing heavy-handed about the descriptions of place or people; they are outlined and worked up with a simple detail here and an expressive line there, and that economy is very effective when so perfectly place and well done.

    When Eve meets Tommy Carr she sees he is 'a kind man': "it was the only question that mattered and contained everything else within itself". So it proves when they marry and have a child, but when their little daughter dies, grief affects Eve and Tommy in different ways, and it's what happens then which is at the heart of the book. I won't go into that here as it's for the reader to discover, but it makes for a thought-provoking, poignant novel and an intense reading experience. I loved it.

Comments

[Simon T]

I thought it was a really good idea, written in Hill's reliably good manner. Not quite up to The Beacon, for me (have you read that one?) - somehow they felt like companion novels, even though the topics were very different.

[LizF]

I read this last year having found it at the library when I was looking for something else, and it is still lodged in my memory.
Beautifully and sparingly written as I would expect from Susan Hill, who has been one of my favourite writers since I first read her early books in the late 70's. I think that she is one of the few writers who can write a wide range of things from short stories and ghost stories to memoir and crime fiction all equally well.
Simon's comment reminds me that I have a copy of The Beacon somewhere and will have to put it on my priority list to read especially as it is in a small format hardback which will fit in my work bag.

[Cornflower]

I haven't read The Beacon, though my edition of A Kind Man has the first two chapters of that book at the back. I would have read them then and there but I was so caught up in the spell of A Kind Man that I couldn't move that quickly into another story.

[Cornflower]

I am a big fan of Susan Hill's, and you're right about her range, Liz. She is very, very good.

[Pam]

Am not familiar with this. Sounds interesting. I like books about situations involving people in relationships and how they respond to them. I will put it on my library list now before I forget...or might be off to book depository or second hand bookshop list.

[Cornflower]

I hope you'll manage to get hold of it, Pam. I always feel in good hands with Susan Hill: she knows what she's doing.

[adele geras]

The Beacon is quite outstanding. And I must get hold of this one too! Susan H is marvellous! Can turn her hand to anything.

[Cornflower]

I must get The Beacon now ...

[Pam]

An addendum- picked the book up at the library today and read it this evening. I really enjoyed it. I loved Eve and felt great sympathy for Miriam. It really did seem to be luck of the draw for women entering marriage (though I guess the same of men as well). You never know how someone will turn out. The gift Tom had was also the same gift a convict had in Stephen King's Green Mile written quite awhile ago now. I had read Susan Hill's Howard's Landing....and had not connected her to both books. Thanks for posting the review, I would not have found this little gem w/out it.

[Gemma]

I've just seen the Woman in Black (seen, not read, I know!) This seems to be in a totally different genre, but it sounds like it has the same kind of tension as The Woman in Black does.