What do you think?
Rate this book
Cryers Hill
Walter Brown went alone to the woodland pond on a July afternoon in 1934. He saw his girl swimming there. She wasn't his girl then, but he knew she would be. He was sixteen when he knew. He watched her floating and saw how white her skin was in the green water, her belly, her breasts, her pond-tangled hair. A naked girl. Then she turned over like an otter and dived down. She did not come up again. Two boys...Sean Matthews stands at the bottom of George's Hill, more or less the very centre of the housing estate, with his hands on his hips. School is finished for the summer and last night, 20 July 1969, two men landed on the moon. There is a notice announcing it in the classroom. Jhe spaesmen hav landid in Jhe see ov trankwility. Funetic words, as if it were a huge laugh; but phonetics is not supposed to be funny. It is important and clever. It is a nationwide experiment, government-sanctioned. Sean and his friends are the guinea pigs. Wur...growing up in the same village thirty-five years apart. When Sean Matthews unknowingly witnesses an event he cannot bear to remember, his life is changed forever. Hailed by Salman Rushdie on the publication of her first novel as 'a real discovery, a writer of precision, delicacy and wit', Kitty Aldridge brings us "Cryers Hill", a novel that confirms her as a writer of immense talent, possessing the rare gift of enabling us to see the world anew, infusing the ordinary with a sense of wonder.
- GenresFiction
352 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2007
3 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 14, 2013
I really wanted to like this book because it is set on my home turf. I like the concept of two stories being told, decades apart, and linked by old love letters from a soldier to his girl in WW2. I also like the idea of making a boy with learning difficulties one of the central characters, and seeing the world through his eyes. She captures the mood of the thirties and the sixties really well, and there are phrases and people and attitudes that I recognise from my childhood.
There is a love story, and a murder/mystery and a suicide, which all sounds really intriguing and a great premise for a good meaty read. But that didn't prevent me from wanting to throw the book at the wall in frustration. I found her style of writing confusing and at times, totally incomprehensible. The characters weren't given enough time for me to invest any emotion in them before the next thing happened, and the next. There is no doubt she can write, but this airy-fairy sort of story-telling is just not for me. Another example is Swimming Home, by Deborah Levi. I can imagine both of their editors scratching their heads and saying, "just publish the whole damned thing. I can't make head nor tail of it." On the whole, neither could I.
There is a love story, and a murder/mystery and a suicide, which all sounds really intriguing and a great premise for a good meaty read. But that didn't prevent me from wanting to throw the book at the wall in frustration. I found her style of writing confusing and at times, totally incomprehensible. The characters weren't given enough time for me to invest any emotion in them before the next thing happened, and the next. There is no doubt she can write, but this airy-fairy sort of story-telling is just not for me. Another example is Swimming Home, by Deborah Levi. I can imagine both of their editors scratching their heads and saying, "just publish the whole damned thing. I can't make head nor tail of it." On the whole, neither could I.
June 27, 2008
Wow - no one else has read this - should I break my duck in writing a review? Eh what the h. here goes.
The book brings together two narrative strands;
1) Walter is a teenager living in a small Buckinghamshire village in the 1930's. He's left school and is working in the local waterworks. The love of his life is Mary Hatt but it isn't very clear how much this is reciprocated.
2) Sean is a young (nine?) year old boy living in the same village in the early sixties. He is being taught in ITA - a phonetic system which means that he can read the school text books OK but cannot read the simplest notes in 'proper' English. The love/bane of his life is Ann - a noisy, rude, strange little girl.
Walter finds he has a rival in his best friend - a religious nut called Sankey - who appears to have more success with Ann than Walter. In a fit of pique Walter resigns from the Waterworks and goes to London. He is next heard of working as a waiter and (since we are now in 1940's) he is drafted into the army. He writes notes back to Ann about his escapades in Africa and Italy
Sean is generally ill regarded. His family and friends think he is (and call him)a spaz. Whether this is because he cannot read properly or some other reason isn't entirely clear. He comes across an old lady who befriends him and trusts him enough to leave in her house whilst she goes to the shops and he finds some letters which he tries to read but of which he can only make the vaguest sense.
I think this book is undecided in what it wants to be. It was described in one review I read as if it was like 'Black Swan Green' - not my favourite book by David Miller but one of my favourite authors and my only reason for picking up this book.
I'm not sure what the ITA references are about - is Kitty Aldridge saying this was a good or a bad thing. For Sean it seems disasterous since he is in the process of Changeover (from phonetics to real language) and just cannot get the hang of it making him seem more stupid than ever but in the end didn't seem to do him any harm. I'm guessing Kitty had a similar experience (although she was more a 70's than 60's child) and is relating her feelings at the time.
Walter's letters to Mary come into the story every now and then (and from the notes in the book some appear to have been from and to real people). These have a reality and impact greater than the rest of the narrative although i'm surprised some of the comments got past the censors at the time.
There is some confused references to mysterious people wandering through the woods who may be real or imagined. There are some twists and turns not all of them obvious and some you totally expect don't happen at all. The ending(s) are unexpected though I guess there are pre-cursors in the text. I wasn't sure at the end what was true and what really happened to some of the characters.
Overall not a great book - I don't regret reading it but I won't rush to get anything else by this author
The book brings together two narrative strands;
1) Walter is a teenager living in a small Buckinghamshire village in the 1930's. He's left school and is working in the local waterworks. The love of his life is Mary Hatt but it isn't very clear how much this is reciprocated.
2) Sean is a young (nine?) year old boy living in the same village in the early sixties. He is being taught in ITA - a phonetic system which means that he can read the school text books OK but cannot read the simplest notes in 'proper' English. The love/bane of his life is Ann - a noisy, rude, strange little girl.
Walter finds he has a rival in his best friend - a religious nut called Sankey - who appears to have more success with Ann than Walter. In a fit of pique Walter resigns from the Waterworks and goes to London. He is next heard of working as a waiter and (since we are now in 1940's) he is drafted into the army. He writes notes back to Ann about his escapades in Africa and Italy
Sean is generally ill regarded. His family and friends think he is (and call him)a spaz. Whether this is because he cannot read properly or some other reason isn't entirely clear. He comes across an old lady who befriends him and trusts him enough to leave in her house whilst she goes to the shops and he finds some letters which he tries to read but of which he can only make the vaguest sense.
I think this book is undecided in what it wants to be. It was described in one review I read as if it was like 'Black Swan Green' - not my favourite book by David Miller but one of my favourite authors and my only reason for picking up this book.
I'm not sure what the ITA references are about - is Kitty Aldridge saying this was a good or a bad thing. For Sean it seems disasterous since he is in the process of Changeover (from phonetics to real language) and just cannot get the hang of it making him seem more stupid than ever but in the end didn't seem to do him any harm. I'm guessing Kitty had a similar experience (although she was more a 70's than 60's child) and is relating her feelings at the time.
Walter's letters to Mary come into the story every now and then (and from the notes in the book some appear to have been from and to real people). These have a reality and impact greater than the rest of the narrative although i'm surprised some of the comments got past the censors at the time.
There is some confused references to mysterious people wandering through the woods who may be real or imagined. There are some twists and turns not all of them obvious and some you totally expect don't happen at all. The ending(s) are unexpected though I guess there are pre-cursors in the text. I wasn't sure at the end what was true and what really happened to some of the characters.
Overall not a great book - I don't regret reading it but I won't rush to get anything else by this author
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 30, 2011
Really enjoyed this story set at different periods but in one small Buckinghamshire village. Our village reading group liked the mystery - did he see a ghost or not? - and felt that the local landscape came through very well. Characters were engagingly odd but believable.
January 28, 2016
Not the easiest book to read but a breathtaking novel that is reminiscent of the writers of the period of stream of consciousnes. The end of the stiry made it more than worthwile.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews