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Disputed Land
Leonard and Rosemary Cannon summon their middle-aged offspring, along with partners and children, to the family home in the Welsh Marches for the Christmas holiday. As the gathered family settle in to their first Christmas together for some years, the grown siblings - Rodney, Johnny and Gwen - are surprised when they are invited to each put stickers on the furniture and items they wish to inherit from their parents.
Disputed Land is narrated by Leonard and Rosemary's thirteen-year-old grandson, Theo, who observes how from these innocent beginnings age-old fissures open up in the relationships of those around him. Looking back at this Christmas gathering from his own middle-age - a narrator at once nostalgic and naïve - Theo Cannon remembers his imperious grandmother Rosemary, alpha-male uncle Johnny, abominable twin cousins Xan and Baz; he recalls his love for his grandfather Leonard and the burgeoning feelings for his cousin Holly. And he asks himself the question: if a single family cannot solve the problem of what it bequeaths to future generations, then what chance does a whole society have of leaving the world intact?
Disputed Land is narrated by Leonard and Rosemary's thirteen-year-old grandson, Theo, who observes how from these innocent beginnings age-old fissures open up in the relationships of those around him. Looking back at this Christmas gathering from his own middle-age - a narrator at once nostalgic and naïve - Theo Cannon remembers his imperious grandmother Rosemary, alpha-male uncle Johnny, abominable twin cousins Xan and Baz; he recalls his love for his grandfather Leonard and the burgeoning feelings for his cousin Holly. And he asks himself the question: if a single family cannot solve the problem of what it bequeaths to future generations, then what chance does a whole society have of leaving the world intact?
240 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2011
3 people are currently reading
135 people want to read
About the author
Tim Pears
21 books104 followersBorn in 1956, Tim Pears grew up in Devon and left school at sixteen. He worked in a wide variety of unskilled jobs: trainee welder, assistant librarian, trainee reporter, archaeological worker, fruit picker, nursing assistant in a psychiatric ward, groundsman in a hotel & caravan park, fencer, driver, sorter of mail, builder, painter & decorator, night porter, community video maker and art gallery manager in Devon, Wales, France, Norfolk and Oxford.
Always he was writing, and in time making short films. He took the Directing course at the National Film and Television School, graduating in the same month that his first novel, In the Place of Fallen Leaves, was published, in 1993.
Always he was writing, and in time making short films. He took the Directing course at the National Film and Television School, graduating in the same month that his first novel, In the Place of Fallen Leaves, was published, in 1993.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 38 reviews
August 25, 2016
Tim Pears is one of my favourite authors: his In a Land of Plenty is one of my favourite novels. While Disputed Land does not quite measure up to the former, it is in itself a fine novel. It is a gentle but thought provoking book. If you expect family melodrama, then this author is not for you. It does however give pause to the thought: if a family cannot resolve the problem of what it accords to it's future generations, how can a society possibly rise to this challenge?
Told, looking back, by Theo Cannon from fifty years later, he remembers a family Christmas gathered at the English Western Marches home of his grandparents. My favourite parts: Pears' beautifully descriptive passages of the West Country, Theo's wardrobe encounter with his cousin Holly, his imperious Grandma, Uncle Jonny's profanity phone, the gentleness of Grandpa and Theo's crush on Aunt Lorna. Tim Pears does send you a clear message in this novel but he does not assault you with the issue. Pears does not devote multiple of pages to the issue, rather he gentles it upon you with a few clear and intentioned sentences and some refined conversations. This manner leaves you feeling not preached to but more like you have hatched personal insight into the problem yourself. Personally, I class this novel as Literary Fiction and rate it 4 ★
August 31, 2018
Tim Pears has a gift of painting with words. His portrayal of the English countryside that's the backdrop of the novel is so evocative that one can smell the grass, almost. The story itself is a story of an extended family, sons, daughters, grandkids of the ailing grandmother of the protagonist, Theo, that gets together on the grandmother's wish, for a Christmas vacation, and Pears paints a nuanced picture of the dysfunctional extended family. And although he's not entirely successful, he tries to weave in another grand narrative - of globalization destroying the earth, and its landscapes. All in all a great read, although on literary grounds, his other book Landed scores much higher. I'd give it 3.5 stars.
March 9, 2017
I enjoyed the story. I thought the way the narrative was placed inside the context of the local nature and landscape, was very well executed.
June 30, 2011
after the promise of the synopsis for this book, it was a disappointment for me. expecting it to focus on the family dynamics that come into play when 'claiming their legacy', this was only addressed briefly. the characters were single dimensional and just didnt engage me :(
September 9, 2024
2.5
This book was rather mundane. The plot was loose at best; however, I didn’t feel like I had to drudge through reading it. While the majority of the book was slow and meandering, the last 15 pages felt like a rush of events that felt random and confusing.
This book was rather mundane. The plot was loose at best; however, I didn’t feel like I had to drudge through reading it. While the majority of the book was slow and meandering, the last 15 pages felt like a rush of events that felt random and confusing.
July 7, 2012
A nostalgic story but one in which nothing much happened - going by the synopsis on the back cover I expected more family feuding, more depth, instead what I got was a fairly nice story, but one which is pretty forgetable
June 20, 2012
I so wanted to enjoy this. The cover, the synopsis and subject matter all drew me in. However, it read like a novel written by a teenager, trying a little bit too hard, which was odd, because, although the story is centred on a teenage boy, it's purportedly written when he's much older. Sorry, but I just couldn't get on with it. I hope it's just me, because it has important things to say, and that's not true of a lot of other novels.
June 7, 2018
The title itself ‘Disputed Land’ is one of those well thought through, pat on the back to the writer for being so clever, titles: not only does it refer to the setting of the novel in the disputed Welsh/English border territories, and to the family home being divided up by the siblings as to what they wish to inherit or do with the place when their parents are gone - it could even, arguably, refer to the relationships between some of the character s themselves, and it’s when you take the title to that metaphorical level that you see that it’s a theme, an undercurrent, underpinning almost everything in the novel.
The plot, on the surface of it, is one of your standard, slightly uncomfortable, family Christmas settings where you move through the events from arrival to departure with a detailed description of each walk, meal, game and conversation. The use of a 13 year old narrator works well in giving these moments equal significance to the more dramatic events such as a suggested affair and the explosive disapproval of a grandmother discovering that her next grandchild is to be from the clinical insemination of her daughter’s new lesbian partner. A child narrator, on the brink of understanding something of adulthood, allows a window through which a reader can view the events and draw their own conclusions and interpretations, unclouded by the comprehensions of a full adult. My chief criticism of the narration would be that the ‘Theo-over-hearing-Uncle-Johnny’s-private-conversation motif’ does wear a little thin after its third appearance but overall the narration style works well.
The characterisation at first seems good, but I think that opinion is formed mostly because the novel initially seems like a character development piece. When considered individually and in depth, the characters actually appear rather two dimensional (unless there’s a shed load of implied meaning that’s so subtly created I’ve managed to miss it all). By the end of the novel as its message becomes clear, the characters appear more as symbols of elements of society, and in that function they work rather better. Uncle Johnny’s branch of the family in particular showcase the illusion that is material success - all the wealth, gadgets and gismos, standards of physical beauty - but they’re revealed to be nothing more than an illusion both as Uncle Johnny’s money problems are revealed but also through the unpleasant nature of those individuals and their lack of happiness. The relationship between grandfather and grandmother, which the narrator considers and re-considers a number of times, also acts as a similar parallel to broader society and specifically the way in which new money has propped up the British class system and aristocracy - whether that’s a good thing and whether it can last is something the writer leaves up to the reader to decide.
The deeper level of this book is its themes. It touches on society, as I discussed earlier; the value we put on knowledge and learning; the distance between young and old; it even shoehorns in with rather less subtlety, a criticism of the way we are destroying our planet - yet perhaps that lack of subtlety is also part of its art, reflecting the way in which we are reminded loudly and frequently about the negative impact we have on our planet and yet what do any of us really do to change it? We dismiss it all, selfishly, as someone else’s problem or in this novel as the ravings of an ill old lady and the ending of the book strongly suggests that we should have paid more heed.
The ending itself did take me by surprise and I remain unsure as to whether I like it or not. It makes the strong point that we need to take real action as our current human way of life is unsustainable, and it clearly signposts to the reader that the novel should be considered from a more metaphorical standpoint, but it does also seem a little unrealistic - sprinkling in a little dystopia at the end of what had been a novel of realism. I think it’s ultimately up to the reader to decide if the ending gives strength and power to the novel or if its a nice idea which could have been done with more subtlety.
The plot, on the surface of it, is one of your standard, slightly uncomfortable, family Christmas settings where you move through the events from arrival to departure with a detailed description of each walk, meal, game and conversation. The use of a 13 year old narrator works well in giving these moments equal significance to the more dramatic events such as a suggested affair and the explosive disapproval of a grandmother discovering that her next grandchild is to be from the clinical insemination of her daughter’s new lesbian partner. A child narrator, on the brink of understanding something of adulthood, allows a window through which a reader can view the events and draw their own conclusions and interpretations, unclouded by the comprehensions of a full adult. My chief criticism of the narration would be that the ‘Theo-over-hearing-Uncle-Johnny’s-private-conversation motif’ does wear a little thin after its third appearance but overall the narration style works well.
The characterisation at first seems good, but I think that opinion is formed mostly because the novel initially seems like a character development piece. When considered individually and in depth, the characters actually appear rather two dimensional (unless there’s a shed load of implied meaning that’s so subtly created I’ve managed to miss it all). By the end of the novel as its message becomes clear, the characters appear more as symbols of elements of society, and in that function they work rather better. Uncle Johnny’s branch of the family in particular showcase the illusion that is material success - all the wealth, gadgets and gismos, standards of physical beauty - but they’re revealed to be nothing more than an illusion both as Uncle Johnny’s money problems are revealed but also through the unpleasant nature of those individuals and their lack of happiness. The relationship between grandfather and grandmother, which the narrator considers and re-considers a number of times, also acts as a similar parallel to broader society and specifically the way in which new money has propped up the British class system and aristocracy - whether that’s a good thing and whether it can last is something the writer leaves up to the reader to decide.
The deeper level of this book is its themes. It touches on society, as I discussed earlier; the value we put on knowledge and learning; the distance between young and old; it even shoehorns in with rather less subtlety, a criticism of the way we are destroying our planet - yet perhaps that lack of subtlety is also part of its art, reflecting the way in which we are reminded loudly and frequently about the negative impact we have on our planet and yet what do any of us really do to change it? We dismiss it all, selfishly, as someone else’s problem or in this novel as the ravings of an ill old lady and the ending of the book strongly suggests that we should have paid more heed.
The ending itself did take me by surprise and I remain unsure as to whether I like it or not. It makes the strong point that we need to take real action as our current human way of life is unsustainable, and it clearly signposts to the reader that the novel should be considered from a more metaphorical standpoint, but it does also seem a little unrealistic - sprinkling in a little dystopia at the end of what had been a novel of realism. I think it’s ultimately up to the reader to decide if the ending gives strength and power to the novel or if its a nice idea which could have been done with more subtlety.
May 18, 2023
I've now read four of Tim Pears' novels - the West Country trilogy (The Horseman, The Wanderers, The Redeemed ) -and this one. Before that I'd never heard of him. It's a depressing thought that despite a lifetime of avid reading I am still ignorant of so many fine novelists (not to mention poets or historians). When I come across writers who make a tremendous first impression on me (T. Pears, for instance) I have always been moved to tell as many people about them as possible. This tendency may account for the fact that in the days when I used to frequent pubs I could never enter the front door of one without becoming aware of two or three people sliding out the side entrance.
In 2008 a thirteen-year-old boy named Theo is travelling with his academic parents in their clapped-out car to a family reunion on the Welsh/English border. Over the next few days they experience a number of crises and arguments about the nature of society, about their places in that society, about the influence of money, social class and status; about the nature of transition between the generations; about what can be passed on and what might be used up; about the function of reflection and the function of activity; about the relationship between mankind and the rest of the natural world.
In some ways the novel reads like a stage play, particularly when significant characters (woodpeckers, badgers) are mostly off stage and made known to the reader by the comments and reflections of Theo and the members of his family.
In the end, despite much discussion of change, my enduring impression was of the continuity of human society, largely because of Theo's haunting vision, towards the end of the book, of Welsh raiders coming over the border just as an important betrayal is ruining what remains of the family's inheritance.
This is a wonderful novel.
In 2008 a thirteen-year-old boy named Theo is travelling with his academic parents in their clapped-out car to a family reunion on the Welsh/English border. Over the next few days they experience a number of crises and arguments about the nature of society, about their places in that society, about the influence of money, social class and status; about the nature of transition between the generations; about what can be passed on and what might be used up; about the function of reflection and the function of activity; about the relationship between mankind and the rest of the natural world.
In some ways the novel reads like a stage play, particularly when significant characters (woodpeckers, badgers) are mostly off stage and made known to the reader by the comments and reflections of Theo and the members of his family.
In the end, despite much discussion of change, my enduring impression was of the continuity of human society, largely because of Theo's haunting vision, towards the end of the book, of Welsh raiders coming over the border just as an important betrayal is ruining what remains of the family's inheritance.
This is a wonderful novel.
June 23, 2025
To be honest, it was only the excellent cover that raised this novel to 3 stars. It was also the cover that invited me to read the blurb and buy the book. I should have paid more attention to the rest of the cover: the praising quotes came from The Mail. Fact is, whilst the book is pleasant enough to read to the end, it is awfully middle class, with the only workers in it a cook/cleaner and a 72 year old gardener cum servant. It is set in the Shropshire Hills over a Christmas family gathering in the three storey Georgian family home, where the grandmother complains about environmental damage whilst driving a Range Rover and joining the local hunt on Boxing Day. All the characters are at least slightly unpleasant, and the children are ridiculously precocious, to the extent I wonder whether the author has any!
Not recommended, unless you are a Daily Mail reading member of the Countryside Alliance.
Not recommended, unless you are a Daily Mail reading member of the Countryside Alliance.
November 28, 2025
I enjoyed reading this book and is quite an easy read. It is seen through the eyes of thoughtful young Theo who is taken by his parents, both Oxford Academics, back to Rodney's, his father's family home in the Welsh Marshes for the Christmas holiday. This is not the relaxing Christmas to which they might be looking forward. Leonard and Rosemary, Theo's grandparents have been considering their foreshortened future and tasked not only Rodney, but also his younger materialistic and brutish brother Johnny, and his preoccupied sister Gwen with the division of the family goods. Theo's arrival is made more challenging again by Baz and Xan, two feckless and brazen twelve year olds, just one year his junior, the offspring of the philistine Johnny and his attractive, zippy South American wife, Lorna.
Intergenerational conflicts, families not getting along and a coming of age novel wrapped into one novel.
Intergenerational conflicts, families not getting along and a coming of age novel wrapped into one novel.
December 21, 2024
It has been a long, long while since I have had an urge to write a review on a book. That in itself speaks louder than any forthcoming words.
I felt nothing but joy reading this book. From the blasphemous nativity scene to the universal feelings that come with adolescence, it’s a cozy read that captures the many nuanced aspects of families.
Although the blurb is slightly misleading, if you have a positive outlook towards this book, you will have a blast.
This book is sad, comical and joyful all at once. I wish I was still cozied up with 200 pages left.
Tim Pears, what an experience. One I will never forget.
I felt nothing but joy reading this book. From the blasphemous nativity scene to the universal feelings that come with adolescence, it’s a cozy read that captures the many nuanced aspects of families.
Although the blurb is slightly misleading, if you have a positive outlook towards this book, you will have a blast.
This book is sad, comical and joyful all at once. I wish I was still cozied up with 200 pages left.
Tim Pears, what an experience. One I will never forget.
August 1, 2020
A bit disappointing, to be honest. I very much liked the idea of how we mess up what we bequeath to the next generation, I just don’t think this is very well explored in the book. I came away with the feeling that the blurb was more wishful thinking than an accurate description.
This is the first Tim Pears I’ve read and I gather some of his others are better, so I won’t give up on him yet. I’m not sure if I will like any others though, as the writing did come across as a bit ‘obviously written by a man’ in parts, in a Julian Barnes-like way.
This is the first Tim Pears I’ve read and I gather some of his others are better, so I won’t give up on him yet. I’m not sure if I will like any others though, as the writing did come across as a bit ‘obviously written by a man’ in parts, in a Julian Barnes-like way.
August 21, 2018
A family Christmas:
The idea behind the story was good and the descriptions of the last family Christmas at the grandparents old rambling house were great. However, it failed to follow through. I would have liked more on why Grandma decided to arrange the 'stickers' and somehow I finished the book feeling deflated. Maybe that is the way with family events. I simply felt the book held so much promise and didn't quite live up to it.
The idea behind the story was good and the descriptions of the last family Christmas at the grandparents old rambling house were great. However, it failed to follow through. I would have liked more on why Grandma decided to arrange the 'stickers' and somehow I finished the book feeling deflated. Maybe that is the way with family events. I simply felt the book held so much promise and didn't quite live up to it.
June 21, 2025
My first novel by this author. I think the tale lacked something for me, despite the hinted-at layers: the differences between adult family members and their social and financial status, the fears of the sick grandmother, developing adolescents etc. Some passages were beautiful as were the descriptions of landscape and setting. There were also some jarring grammatical errors involving the misuse of pronouns (when to use ‘I’ or ‘me’ particularly).
July 26, 2018
I was so sceptical about the premise of a 13 year old remembering the detail of conversations, meals, what people were wearing and events, I had to abandon it half way through. Not a good read.
March 2, 2019
A gentle story, with a dark core that creeps up on you without noticing.
September 6, 2022
Wow that was very cleverly done
March 8, 2026
Centered around Christmas and the multilayers of siblings and extended family. Beautifully written with the countryside and nature a large part of the story. Would like to read more of this author.
Read
March 16, 2017brill
February 21, 2017
Lovely story, will look for more from this author.
March 11, 2015
Set some 50 years in the future, amid the rolling Welsh marches, Theo, the novel's middle-aged narrator, reflects upon a series events which took place over the Christmas period of 2008 when he was thirteen years old. His grandparents, Leonard & Rosemary Cannon, had summoned the family together - Rodney, Jonny & Gwen, & their offspring -, inviting them to place stickers on any items they wished to inherit.
I'm undecided whether this is a book about family & how wretched they can make us feel, or the environment & how little time we have left.
We see a family falling apart as the matriarch is terminally ill & one brother, Jonny, intends to cozen the farm from his father to cover his debts, playing emotional blackmail with Leonard's grandchildren's needs. Young Theo is just getting to know his extended family, but looks like losing it all in this one family Christmas.
Grandmother Rosemary is prone to outrageous statements due to a tumor affecting her brain. She is worried that each person has not done enough to save & nurture the environment, and that it is too late. By the sounds of Theo's last few paragraphs, she may well have been right - why else consign his grandfather's library to the flames?
I'm not sure what to make of it, but I do know that enforced family get-togethers at Christmas can be extremely strained.
Dad told me not to be downcast. 'Harmony exists only in music, Theo' he said. 'And then only rarely. A single family can no more sort out its legacy than society can,' he said.
Registered at http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1....
I'm undecided whether this is a book about family & how wretched they can make us feel, or the environment & how little time we have left.
We see a family falling apart as the matriarch is terminally ill & one brother, Jonny, intends to cozen the farm from his father to cover his debts, playing emotional blackmail with Leonard's grandchildren's needs. Young Theo is just getting to know his extended family, but looks like losing it all in this one family Christmas.
Grandmother Rosemary is prone to outrageous statements due to a tumor affecting her brain. She is worried that each person has not done enough to save & nurture the environment, and that it is too late. By the sounds of Theo's last few paragraphs, she may well have been right - why else consign his grandfather's library to the flames?
I'm not sure what to make of it, but I do know that enforced family get-togethers at Christmas can be extremely strained.
Dad told me not to be downcast. 'Harmony exists only in music, Theo' he said. 'And then only rarely. A single family can no more sort out its legacy than society can,' he said.
Registered at http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1....
June 30, 2011
This as your basic family Christmas tale really. You know the family are going to fall out, disagree or generally annoy each other and it's unlikely to have a super happy group-hug type of ending. The story is narrated by 13 year old Theo as his extended family gather at his grandparents for Christmas 2008. The underlying conceit is that he's narrating the story from 50 years after the events take place. On the whole I liked the book but didn't think it was anything particularly special. The "50 years time" device is happily underplayed - too much of it would have annoyed me - but perhaps it's so lightly done that it barely needs to be there and I didn't really feel it added anything to the story in the end. A good four star book, but I'd have liked it to have been better.
July 19, 2012
I enjoyed this novel, but as other reviewers have suggested it could have explored the issues and characters in more depth. The people are rather stereotyped and the contrasts between them the source of conflict. I was disappointed with the ending particularly with respect the the grandpa. However it was a good story and an interesting read and the depiction of a family Christmas felt very convincing at times.
June 4, 2023
Not enough STARS available. Theo, 13 years old, observes his family; gathered together over Christmas; summoned by his grandparents. Beautiful, funny, shocking, joyful, emotionally wrenching and more profound quotes than you can shake a stick at (not a cheesy word in sight). A massive hug for all of them, each in their own messed up lives that are at once ordinary and extraordinary, because we are human.
August 5, 2012
A really enjoyable and thought-provoking novel, this has a clear message but puts it across without being preachy. I was pleased that this one had likeable central characters as I read Tim Pears's Blenheim Orchard and really struggled to warm to some of the central characters. The final paragraph almost tipped this over to five stars for me. Definitely one I'd read again.
January 1, 2015
There are themes in this novel that really deserve better, stronger treatment rather than to be occasionally voiced and strung together by pages of dreary text.
And yet the author is obviously articulate.
Yes, it's a boy speaking his memory, but could he not have brought more of his consequent adult life to the story in relation to the influences of his childhood?
And yet the author is obviously articulate.
Yes, it's a boy speaking his memory, but could he not have brought more of his consequent adult life to the story in relation to the influences of his childhood?
January 10, 2016
Set on the Welsh borders, this novel uses the common theme of a family gathering for a grave illness or death and how the tensions play out between them, echoing the larger dysfunctions of society. This is in some ways an elegy for a region and way of life that is being destroyed by contemporary greed and thoughtlessness.
Worth reading but I wouldn’t pursue more novels by the author.
Worth reading but I wouldn’t pursue more novels by the author.
June 24, 2012
took awhile to get into this book, story of a family spending christmas together in the shropshire hills and showing the conflicts within the family narrated by 13 year old theo relaying the story 50 years later , was an okay book overall
Displaying 1 - 29 of 38 reviews