In the Place of Fallen Leaves [Hardcover]

Tim Pears (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 1993

This overwhelmingly hot summer everything seems to be slowing down in the tiny Devon village where Alison lives, as if the sun is pouring hot glue over it. 'This idn't nothin',' says Alison's grandmother, recalling a drought when the earth swallowed lambs, and the summer after the war when people got electric shocks off each other. But Alison knows her grandmother's memory is lying: this is far worse. She feels that time has stopped just as she wants to enter the real world of adulthood. In fact, in the cruel heat of summer, time is creeping towards her, and closing in around the valley.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this piercingly beautiful, fiercely lyrical first novel, narrator Alison Freemantle, 13, awakens to love, sexuality, death, class divisions and the mystery of life on a farm in a Devonshire village during the summer of 1984. Alison's father drinks himself into a stupor on rough cider and neglects her overworked, unhappy mother. Pamela, her older sister who's always preoccupied with dating, seems remote. Her two brothers-Ian, an insomniac chess prodigy, and Tom, a bumpkin who feels closer to animals than to people until he falls swooningly, comically in love-will come to blows over the same girl. Meanwhile, Jonathan, a viscount's son, rescues Alison from drowning, but their platonic friendship is declared off-limits after a barn they explore accidentally catches fire. Through stories told to Alison by her crippled grandmother, the lives of the girl's relatives and of villagers-their tragedies, courtships and crises, over 50 years-are revealed. Pears evokes unspoken bonds of love, a sense of community, organic connectedness to nature in a remarkable debut, a work shot through with moments of great tenderness, beauty and emotional power.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This wonderful first novel tells the story of life beneath the blazing sun in a small rural village in England during the devastating drought of 1984. The long, absorbing plot unfolds through the eyes of Allison, the youngest child of the Freemantle family. Allison lives with her parents, siblings, and grandparents on the family farm, and as the long, blistering summer passes, she weaves a tale about the lives of past, present, and future members of her family and village. By the end of the narrative and the approach of the first rain in many months, Allison's family has been changed forever, each character undergoing a transformation of sorts, ensuring life will never be the same. Pears' gentle and consistently surprising writing style masterfully evokes the parched summer and brings to life the introspective narrator as well as the other idiosyncratic characters that populate this novel. Kathleen Hughes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books Australia; First Edition edition (March 25, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 024113322X
• ISBN-13: 978-0241133224
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,501,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written book, March 26, 2000

By 

Joe Copping - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Place of Fallen Leaves (Paperback)

This book tells the story of the hottest summer of the 20th Century from the point of view of a family living in rural Devon. It is quite simply a stunning book that is written so that the characters seem so real and touching. It is sensitive and is almost dreamlike in its narrative. The heat of that summer is conveyed so well that you feel as though you are living it. As one other reviewer said it is "intoxicating and magical" and I would fully agree with that. A superb book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magical, September 28, 2000

By 

Fay Morley (Cornwall, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Place of Fallen Leaves (Hardcover)

Not necessarily a book I would have selected myself, but from the first page I was captivated. One of the most magical novels I have read in years. Pears' prose is wonderfully poetic, the story is charming, enigmatic, subtle and devastatingly thought-provoking. A truly stunning masterpiece. If you read but one novel this year, make it this one.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely, August 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Place of Fallen Leaves (Paperback)

I purchased this book on accident, thinking it was Iain Pears("An Instance of the Fingerpost"). I almost didn't read itwhen I noticed my mistake, but as a voracious reader, I just couldn't let it go to waste on my bookshelf.

I loved this book from the very first page. Mr. Pears is an excellent story teller, and I hope that "In the Place of Fallen Leaves" earns it's rightful place among other classics such as "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "A Separate Peace".