Booker 101 Quick & Dirty Monday!
THE LAND IN WINTER: Andrew Miller
Europa Editions: 4 November 2025 (US)Sceptre: 24 October 2024 (UK) (I’m using the UK edition)
Page Count: 371
First line: He was lying on a varnished wooden board, the top of a boxed-in radiator.
Blurbed by:
Hilary Mantel – (Nominated for the Booker four times, she’s the first woman to win the Booker twice – 2009 for WOLF HALL and 2012 for BRING UP THE BODIES. Her blurb is about Miller not the novel.)
Samantha Harvey – (2024 Booker Prize winner for ORBITAL)
Rachel Joyce – (Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2012 for THE UNLIKELY PRLGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY.)
Sarah Hall – (Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2004 for THE ELECTRIC MICHELANGELO. Longlisted in 2009 for HOW TO PAINT A DEAD MAN. She has also served as a previous Booker judge.)
THE LAND IN WINTER is Andrew Miller’s tenth novel. He was previously shortlisted for the Booker Prize for OXYGEN. He lives in Somerset.
Don’t Judge a Book…
Is it possible to like both covers equally? I keep going back and forth between these two, and I can’t seem to land on a preference. The UK edition might be edging out the US one – but just barely. Both covers have a chill to them, but the UK edition seems to capture the stark isolation, the land and the sky blurring under the snow such that what is up is down and what is down is up. The blue words on the greyscale image feel cold and hopeless. The image is turned on its side, further showcasing the topsy turvy impact of the blizzard and subsequent “Big Freeze” of 1962/3.
The US edition features the two houses on a blanket of white, highlighting the proximity of the two women forced upon each other by circumstance and loneliness. The pink and purple with the white font give the cover a more feminine feel that seems more hopeful with a hint of warmth than the UK cover doesn’t provide. The cover makes me think of Rita and an ending of escape.
What about you? Which one is your favorite?
“She takes a lemon for no reason but the shine of its waxed skin, its history of sunlight.” (205)
“All winter you hold yourself like a fist, a tension you’re hardly aware of until the first warm day when you lift your face to the sun. (33)
“He had the impression he was following just behind the dragged hem of a dream.” (102)
Set during the Big Freeze that started on Boxing Day 1962 and carried into January, Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter has been perhaps my biggest surprise of the longlist. Initially, I found myself uninterested, disengaged (primarily because I hate Dr. Eric Parry) – but my heart thawed as the snow fell. This domestic fiction features two pregnant women, neighbors, in a small town. Irene, the doctor’s wife, is trying to adjust to rural life with nothing to do but be the doctor’s spouse. Rita, a former showgirl, is battling the voices in her head and a family disposition to madness while her husband is making a go at being a diary farmer.
The novel alternatives POVS between Eric, Irene, Rita, and her husband, Billy. Billy loves Rita. He’s not so great at being a farmer or understanding his wife, but he’s trying. Eric is awful. He doesn’t want children. He’s having an affair. He treats his wife like crap. He’s not a good doctor. He thinks he’s too good for the town. The novel could have benefitted from him ending up face down in a snow drift.
The writing floats like falling snow, but snow filled with shards of ice. It can be cold and cutting followed by soft and picturesque – the events unfolding as unpredictable as a winter storm.
Things to note:
Martin, Rita’s father, obsession with fire.
The foreshadowing of Drusilla’s dead calf.
The spinning tops Martin made for his unborn grandchild.
The snowman Rita and Irene build.
Gabby.
I want to reread this novel with snow on the ground – but I think the desolation and despair might be too much. This one made my shortlist. It’s more of a traditional novel than some of the others on the list, but it is one of my favorites.
A Girl Named Tommi 