This is a rich, irresistible story ... O’Farrell is not just telling a 19th-century story, she’s tilling the fields of those great Victorian novelists who understood that the only thing that redeems the contrivance of an unlikely coincidence is the pleasurable shock it gives us ... By the end of Land, no matter what your ancestry, these are your people ... Tender.
As relayed through beautiful passages about nature, the land abides as its occupants change, and the descriptions of music and its emotional impact soar. Readers will gain a whole new perspective on mapmaking.
The simplicity of its title masks the depth of insight and emotion that makes Maggie O'Farrell's novel Land such an encompassing reading experience ... She's chosen to record her representation of Irish life on a much larger canvas than she did the world of William Shakespeare in Hamnet, but the same qualities of empathy and grace she displayed in that beautiful novel reappear here in abundance.
