‘One of the greatest novels of the year so far’ THE CHANGING TIMES

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE ENTIRE YEAR

‘Unlike anything I’ve read. Haunting and large, and funny and sensuous. It’s wonderful’ Tessa Hadley

‘I just enjoyed it so very much’ Philip Pullman

It’s the 17th century and a wall structure has been built around a great house. Wychwood is an enclosed globe, its ornamental lakes and majestic avenues prepared about Peculiar Surface by Mr Norris, landscape-maker. A global where everyone offers something to hide after decades of civil war, where dissidents shelter in the forest, enthusiasts linger in key gardens, and migrants, fleeing the plague, are turned away from the gate.

Three centuries later, another wall rises overnight, dividing Berlin, while at Wychwood, over one hot, languorous weekend, erotic entanglements are shadowed by news of historic change. Just a little gal, Nell, observes all.

Nell matures and Wychwood is invaded. There is a pop event by the lake, a TV crew in the dining area and an excellent Storm making. As the Berlin wall structure boils down, a fatwa indicators a different ideological faultline and a refugee looks for basic safety in Wychwood.

Through the multi-award-winning author of The Pike comes a breathtakingly ambitious, beautiful and timely novel about game keepers and witches, agitators and aristocrats, about young love and the pathos of aging, and about how exactly those that wall others out risk finding themselves walled in.