This Cold Country [Hardcover]

Annabel Davis-Goff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2002

The author of the New York Times Notable Book The Dower House, known for her elegant prose and her keen eye for the nuances of class, now adds the lush, large-screen immediacy of a Merchant-Ivory film to her compelling tale of a woman and a culture forever changed by World War II.
Only a few days after Daisy Creed precipitously marries Patrick Nugent, scion of an Anglo-Irish family, Patrick rejoins his regiment in France. Having never met her in-laws, Daisy sets sail for her new home, Dunmaine, County Waterford. The family's affairs echo its estate: grand and forbidding on the outside, decaying and corrupt within. Patrick's vain, spoiled sister, Corisande, soon flees to her lover, leaving Daisy alone with Patrick's feeble brother, Mickey, and grandmother, Maud, who has taken to her bed. In her determination to save Dunmaine and secure her place as its mistress, Daisy unwittingly becomes an accomplice in a dangerous political plot, as old and as fraught as The Troubles.
With grace and wit, Davis-Goff portrays a lost way of life and the war
that rendered it obsolete. In the character of Daisy Creed she has created
an unforgettable Everywoman of her time--part Elizabeth Bennett, part Scarlett O'Hara.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Davis-Goff, author of The Dower House, a New York Times Notable Book, and Walled Gardens, a memoir, plumbs her Irish roots once more in this tale about a young English woman adjusting to new social, political and class demands when she moves to Ireland during World War II. A volunteer in England's Land Army, Daisy Creed works on a farm in Wales. Given the rare wartime occasion to meet an eligible bachelor, she quickly marries Patrick Nugent, a distant Anglo-Irish cousin of her employer. In a matter of days, Patrick is called on duty and Daisy joins Patrick's family in Ireland. Gothic touches abound; the Nugents are eccentrics, their home full of mysteries and reminders of better days. Daisy's new family includes Corisande, a spoiled beauty growing bitter as she approaches middle age without a suitor; her mild-mannered brother, Mickey, who silently puts up with all in exchange for solitude; a grandmother who may or may not be in a coma. All are residents of Dunmaine, the family's overgrown, undermanaged estate. Through Daisy's dogged questioning, Davis-Goff gets at the reasons and implications behind Ireland's WWII neutrality. Daisy's queries are answered mainly by Mickey: As soon as there were two religions, it was all over for Ireland. Up until then the conquerors and colonists became enthusiastically Irish in about five minutes. These conversational, encyclopedic passages fill in blanks for readers who don't know their Irish history, but water down the already thin story. Davis-Goff is a talented writer, however, and there is much to appreciate here in the way of elegant prose and careful characterizations.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Daisy Creed, a land girl in World War II England, impetuously marries Patrick Nugent days before he is sent to France with his regiment. When she joins his family in County Waterford, she finds that the Nugent family home, like many of the old Anglo-Irish estates (and the aging aristocracy itself), has fallen into a state of decay. Its residents Patrick's grandmother, spoiled sister, and backward brother have mortgaged it to the hilt with no apparent regard for the future. Daisy carefully begins to assert her position as mistress of the house and to control expenses, eventually taking in paying guests. Her first guest is a recuperating British soldier who seduces her and then vanishes after the murder of a questionably Fascist local lord. This is yet another marvelous Anglo-Irish novel of manners by Davis-Goff (The Dower House); Daisy is a charming character, and the lush but languishing Irish landscape of the 1940s is the perfect setting for this wartime love story. A rich and satisfying read; highly recommended. Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151008477
• ISBN-13: 978-0151008476
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,796,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Read, May 8, 2002

By 

"dpoll00" (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Cold Country (Hardcover)

A smart book with rich, mature writing. After a wave of gee-aren't-I-clever tomes, like "A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius" and "The Corrections" I was thrilled to get this passed to me by a friend.

Davis-Goff is amusing and intelligent, telling a story of a young woman in a time and place that seems very far away and, in the shadow of recent world events, not that distant at the same time. This book is not packed with action, just wonderful words -- it will remind you why you like reading so much in the first place.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If Jane Austen was Irish, May 27, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: This Cold Country (Hardcover)

I read this over one weekend. Daisy Creed is like any good Austen heroine. She's plucky, determined, and Davis-Goff spices up rich writing with biting commentary on the manners and motivations of a different time and place. I can't say I knew anything about Ireland before I read the book. Now I want to go there. I just fear that sixty years after the action of this book takes place, I won't find what I'm looking for anywhere except in another novel.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When less can be more..., September 13, 2006

By 

Joan Zaratian (Poulsbo, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This Cold Country (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

I thought this novel was brilliant. The author captured the class consciousness that defined Britain well into the 20th century. Daisy recognizes her place in the social system;she feels slightly superior, as the daughter of educated parents,to the other WWII Land Girl, yet not completely at ease with the "landed gentry' she works for. While several reviewers berate Goff for not fully developing her characters, I would like to offer a Brit's perspective. In her defense, I believe the author, through her subtle character interactions,allows us to experience the insidiousness and ultimate downfall of a class system based on assumed nobility or old wealth. When Daisy finally figures out the desperate financial status of this gentrified family she has married into, she stands out in her bid to salvage the ancestral home by actually taking in paying guests, anathema to a social class that had relied on a good name and a forgiving feudal class to maintain an unrealistic standard of living. Daisy's entrepeneurship is in direct contrast to the family and others of that class who by their ineffectuality seem to invite their own demise.It is a harbinger of the social upheaval to come in Britain and the emergence of the middle class In many ways,Goff's writing reflects the understated style of Kazuo Ishiguro in the context of Remains of the Day, where there is also a maddening sense of non-resolution.It seems to me that an author can be just as judicious about leaving details out as including them. I believe Goff wanted her readers to reflect on the turmoil that war presents on both personal and political levels. And she used her characters well to demonstrate how the human spirit can cope or fail.