Foxash: 'A wonderfully atmospheric and deeply unsettling novel' Sarah Waters

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The story is set in the 1930's in England and starts with Lettie, a young married woman arriving to join her husband, Tommy, who has signed up for a government scheme ( that really did exist) to train unemployed men to farm with financial assistance and the lease on a small holding. There are hints that something happened beyond their descent into poverty after Tommy lost his mining job. Lettie arrives at Foxash farm to find their accommodation is joined to another house and set well away from the families with children in the central zone. Their neighbours are an older couple Adam and Jean who grew up farming and are seemingly in tune with the rhythms of nature. They set out to win over Lettie as they seem to have done with her taciturn husband. Jean gives Lettie a delicious lettuce and a green potion , to "build her up" which seems to have aphrodisiac and psychotropic properties. Like the Tale of Rapunzel, Lettie cannot resist Jean's lettuce and late at night is driven to steal from Adam and Jean's glasshouse.. The consequences of this theft reverberate throughout the story as the couples get to know one another better and attempt to bring forth "fruit from the land" and their characters start to be revealed.. Professor Wise was appointed by the Government in 1963 to report on the LSA. His findings published in 1967, recommended that the number of LSAs be reduced to 10. And a considerable part of the success of 'Foxash' for me is Alex Dunmore's performance of the audiobook. She imbues miniscule dips and peaks of emotion; she gestures with her voice as it wavers, gulps, breathes fluctuations in Lettie's inner monologues and dialogue with others. I was entirely caught up in her spellbinding narration. Foxash was one of the many small-holdings set up in the 1930s by the Government’s Land Settlement Association.

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Combining a gothic sensibility with a visceral, unsettling sense of place, Foxash is a deeply original novel of quiet and powerful menace, of the real hardships of rural life, and the myths and folklore that seep into ordinary lives - with surprising consequences. Lettie is a miner’s wife. As a woman, she doesn’t ask for much out of life. It’s the Great Depression, her husband has lost his job and they are penniless. Lettie is cautiously optimistic when she and her husband are granted relocation from a “Special Area” to a government-sponsored farming community. She’s grateful when the couple on the adjacent farm go out of their way to help them get established during their first farming season. And not forgetting our young audiences, fun and games are firmly on the menu at Harlow Library on June 17. Join us for this year’s Family Fun Day, a day of free family-friendly activities including baby and toddler rhymetime, family storytime, colouring activities and Ozobots robot kits. Other activities will include a special performance by Livewire Theatre Group and a writing workshop led by Essex-based children’s author and educator Sade Fadipe.The allocation of smallholdings to the unemployed was suspended at the outbreak of the Second World War through the necessity of increasing food production; favour was then given to those already with horticultural skills. After the war the Association was incorporated within the 1947 Agricultural Act for statutory provision of smallholdings designed as a first step for those going into agricultural production.

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I found it to be actually a very claustrophobic, isolated and dark story, which I guess is where the gothic bit comes in. Several of the twists and turns are a bit predictable, although perhaps the final one is unexpected. The Radleys have been accepted by a government scheme aimed at resettling the unemployed, and Tommy has gone ahead of Lettie to learn the art of being a smallholder. At first everything seems to be going swimmingly. Their new neighbours, Adam and Jean Dent, are an older couple and experienced smallholders. They offer friendship and educate the newcomers about growing their crops and taking care of their animals. The younger pair must reach a certain standard during a probation period, or risk losing their home and livelihood. Lettie seems to forgive everyone except herself for any failings, but she is suspicious of the Dents and their over-familiarity with her husband.Small-holdings were grouped in communities which were expected to run agricultural production as cooperative market gardens, with materials bought and produce sold exclusively through the Association. All applicants were interviewed and given agricultural training before being assigned a property. What I loved most about Foxash is the way that the author weaves in rural lore, such as going to tell the bees about significant events, and the natural changes in the countryside as the seasons change. It is almost claustrophobic in its detailed descriptions of the countryside, the oppressive heat of the greenhouse and the chill of winter mornings with the cry of foxes. Lettie’s world was never vast, but it has become much smaller: she never leaves the smallholding and seldom meets anyone other than her neighbours. As compensation she learns to observe nature and how it behaves in a way that she hasn’t previously, and we seldom would today. We witness the growth and transformation that envelops everything, even Lettie herself. Oh and there’s quite a lot of information about lettuces! With this kind of feeling, right about now I’d be expecting some kind of supernatural interference to occur. The last chapters were truly gothic and disturbing and the ending was done very well, as I wasn’t sure how she would finish off this truly chilling tale. About half-way through the book the author ramps up the tension. It becomes clear that Lettie isn’t just an anxious young woman: a shadow hangs over her, and she fears that some terrible event in the couple’s past will catch up with them and ruin their new lives. I felt much more engaged with the book at this point, hoping that whatever the mysterious issues were, they would be resolved. Then, just when it seemed that things were getting bad for the Radleys, they got worse!