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Sarah Hall
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Haweswater: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Sarah Hall (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 285 ratings
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“Here is a writer of show-stopping genius: everyone should buy this novel.”—The Guardian

A remote village is threatened by industrialization and by a scandalous love affair in this debut novel by the author of Burntcoat and the Man Booker Prize finalist The Electric Michelangelo

The village of Marsdale is a quiet corner of the world, cradled in a remote dale in England's lovely Lake District. The rhythm of life in the deeply religious, sheltered community has not changed for centuries. But in 1936, when Waterworks representative Jack Ligget from industrial Manchester arrives with plans to build a new reservoir, he brings the much feared threat of impending change to this bucolic hamlet. And when he begins an intense and troubled affair with Janet Lightburn—a devout local woman of rare passion and strength of spirit—it can only lead to scandal, tragedy, and remarkable, desperate acts.

From Sarah Hall, the internationally acclaimed author of the Man Booker Prize finalist The Electric Michelangelo, comes a stunning and transcendent novel of love, obsession, and the passing of an age.

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  1. Print length
    290 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Harper Perennial
  5. Publication date
    July 4, 2017
  6. File size
    857 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mardale, the remote British hamlet where Hall's remarkable debut novel is set, is a close-knit community of tenant farmers "where grand events and theatrical schemes rarely take place." So when a handsome stranger arrives in 1936, suspicions run high among the hardworking villagers. Jack Liggett is up-front about his plans for Mardale: he has come to inform the villagers that their homes would soon be at the bottom of a massive reservoir. According to Liggett, the dam associated with the project will be a "wonderful piece of architecture and engineering." But the villagers, who view the project as "so strange and vast that at first it was not taken seriously," resist, setting off a losing struggle between the insular community and the modern world. Caught in the middle is Janet Lightburn, the daughter of a local farmer, who begins a tempestuous and tragic romance with Jack. A Booker Prize finalist for her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, (published in the U.S. in 2005), Hall is a talented writer, and though U.S. readers may have trouble with the phonetically rendered dialogue ("Twa Pund. Eh? Yan more ootstanding' "), the story, with its undertones of loss and grief, tugs at the heart. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

With no more than 30 habitations, the quiet English village of Mardale is the smallest of places. In 1936 its residents, mostly tenant farmers and laborers, live idyllically, almost separate from the rest of the world, herding cows, cattle, ponies, and sheep. When Jack Liggett, a waterworks company spokesman, arrives announcing that the blue-green Mardale valley is the future site of a dam (a wonderful piece of architecture and engineering, megalithic, inspired), Samuel Lightburn and the villagers struggle to comprehend not only the news of the project's vastness but their own displacement: "We cannot live underwater." Sharing thematic parallels with D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, Commonwealth Award-winning Hall's outstanding debut novel is beautifully rendered and offers rich meditations on nature, community, passion, and love. Miriam Tuliao
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B071HT3337
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial (July 4, 2017)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 4, 2017
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 857 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 290 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 285 ratings

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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
285 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Richard M. Kennedy
5.0 out of 5 stars A Billiant Beginning
Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2015
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Haweswater may be one of the most extraordinary debut novels I've had the good fortune to come across. I have read several of Sarah Hall's novels at this point and can say she's truly a remarkable author.
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T. Burket
4.0 out of 5 stars lyrical, crafted writing with decent story
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2007
As the first reviewer, I'll summarize the story, which is a fictionalized account of the construction of an actual dam called Haweswater in the Lake District of northern England, resulting in the flooding of a valley by the reservoir, and the loss of the community and its traditions. The water company, towns and other landmarks actually existed; the individuals did not and the timing also differs somewhat.

In 1936, Jack Liggett comes to town to prepare for the construction of the dam and the destruction of life as the locals know it. Some grudingly accept the inevitable and others hold out for a change in plans that never comes. The first 40 pages (the book is only 266 pages in paperback) set the scene of the hard, rural life and introduce Janet Lightburn and her family.

Then Jack arrives to sell the plans and move the project forward, prepared to deal with the natives' resistance, and we get another view of local life from his perspective and his changing appreciation for what it offers. Jack isn't quite the elite city boy he appears to be. We can easily tell that Jack and Janet are headed for a relationship and that trouble will result. The author is not particularly light with the touch in describing Janet and her mother and their respective emotional turmoil. Hall is better with how Janet works closely with her father in the menial chores raising sheep and farming. The inevitable relationship seems a bit forced. After all, Janet is only 18 and Jack is 30-something, and, to be honest, not much happens between them other than passionate, rough rendevous. No introspective dialog or philosophizing about a life together, or even romance, for example.

Eventually Jack and Janet's affair (he's married) becomes public, and it's also time for the locals to evacuate. A terrible accident occurs, setting in motion the rapid decline of one of our main characters and an explosive climax.

Sarah Hall writes wonderfully, and her debut novel shows talent that could well lead to future, successful novels. (Her second novel was well-received.) Hall's love for the scene of Haweswater and respect for the rural life, its people and its tradition all come through clearly. Many passages are quite evocative and imaginative, although occasionally overwritten, when simpler language would have sufficed. I felt Janet's character was a bit much, too, pushed to a rather unrealistic position. Janet's father Samuel is a more sympathetic, stronger and better drawn character.
12 people found this helpful
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HyalineBlue
3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Writing, Lacked Sustenance
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2009
The previous reviewer did a lovely job laying out the basic plot. Perhaps one of the flaws with the book was just how basic the plot was--with such a simple storyline, the author had to work very hard to include enough complexity to maintain a full-fledged novel. One place that could have used more complexity--likely improving the book as a whole--was the character development. There remained throughout the book a certain distance that I felt we never breached between the reader and the characters. Janet was difficult to know, as were her family members and certainly her love interest.

The writing, however, was nearly without exception very lovely to read. Her phrasing and descriptions are beautiful and original, and she translates her fascination with the place and time into interest for the reader.

Without giving anything away, I have to admit that I found the ending somehow both predictable and disappointing.

Worth reading for the lovely prose, and I expect that her second effort (I have yet to read it) will deliver more sustenance in terms of story.
4 people found this helpful
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George Sulkowski
5.0 out of 5 stars Haweswater novelly explained
Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2013
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I'd hazard a guess in saying that Sarah Hall may have written a Lakes classic; the 'recent' history of the Water adds depth to it.
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Christine Muller
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2017
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Loved this.
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Susan Ricci
2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2015
so slow and boring I had to force myself to finish it
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Top reviews from other countries

Christine Boos
5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning!
Reviewed in Germany on August 16, 2021
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A stunning novel, stunning lyrical prose, stunning plot! Each sentence is a story in itself, describing the villagers' lives with extraordinary accuracy without ever being boring. Not much action, not many colours depict this tale (blue, green) actually: soft colours even though the landscape is clearly painted. It felt more or less like a picture drawn in charcoal. However, Janet's rage, passion, insanity (?) have thrown a dash of bright red on the overall picture which becomes fully alive.
Based on true events (evacuation of Mardale inhabitants to build a dam in 1936), the characters are fictional. They could well have been alive though, for their development is masterfully realistically rendered. It is a story of love, resilience (and I really mean resilience), and identity with the land.
This novel is for me a literary masterpiece. I have seldom read such excellent writing! Highly recommended for readers who are interested in not only a story but also in words!
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Stewart Robertson
5.0 out of 5 stars A sensational read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 14, 2013
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Near the beginning of the novel, a bullock has Janet Lightburn's father trapped against a rowan, butting him with its horns. Janet, aged eight at the time, has taken refuge in the tree on her father's command. Then: `It was only a moment later that he heard the cry, a throaty half-growl, half-hiss, and there was a flash of yellow down from the branches of the tree, on to the neck of the bullock and off, bringing enough weight against the animal for its head to drop with the shock of it'.

This is a defining moment for Janet and Samuel Lightburn alike. The bullock's horns catch Janet as she falls and the resultant scar will be visible on her forehead for the rest of her life. For her father, Janet's scar becomes emblematic of the deep feeling, almost awe and reverence, which he will always have for his daughter. From the incident, the reader is made aware of the `energy' within the girl and realises the depth of feeling of which Janet is capable and the extent to which she can channel it.

Janet's deepest feelings are inextricably interconnected with the place where she was born and grew up (the Westmorland village of Mardale) and with Jack Ligget, the love of her life. Jack is the representative of Manchester City Waterworks, the intention of which is to build a dam, destroy Mardale, flood the dale and create the Haweswater Reservoir. Jack, `a product of the city', falls under the spell of the land and Janet. At their first meeting it is Janet's `energy' that attracts: `She lacked the combed, powdered quality of the women in the city tearooms and dancehalls, and also their stunted manner of walking. This woman strode. Her hair lifted back in the wind. He thought to himself, she is not beautiful'.

The story is straightforward enough but Sarah Hall excels in the telling. She has a way with words that makes her prose as lyrical as poetry. The weight and the rhythm of words grab the readers' emotions. The power of language binds together the story's elements and emphasises the close interrelationship of people and place that the reservoir is likely to destroy. The patterning and layering of images is spellbinding and results in a richly satisfying whole.

When the Royal Engineers come to raise Mardale to the ground, the remaining villagers gather to witness the spectacle. There is a typically marvelous image of Janet, watching the bombing alone and thinking of her dead Jack: `She reached for a small stone lodged in the grass, put it into her mouth, and its wet mineral lined up along her tongue. She put two more in the sockets of her closed eyes and lay back as if to sleep. After a time the explosions became so loud she thought they were right next to her. And still she did not retreat. The bombs continued to detonate, bragging through the grass to where she was sitting alone. She caught pieces of the old village in her new locks of hair, in her lap, in her skin'.

Novels are sometimes described as sensational in a pejorative sense. To read `Haweswater' is to experience the sensations of characters who feel for places and people with passionate intensity. It's a sensational read.

Stewart Robertson
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John S
5.0 out of 5 stars A master class in writing
Reviewed in Australia on December 22, 2015
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This is one of the most interesting books I have read. Here is an instinctive and fluid command of emotive writing and a power of allegory unlike any other I remember. It is a simple, direct narrative of simple people with complications of character which are very well drawn. It has the timeless, challenging quality of a classic. I think maybe it will become one.
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Tiffin
3.0 out of 5 stars Good but dreary
Reviewed in Australia on March 27, 2015
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Powerful and well crafted story. I read it without a great deal of enjoyment as the subject matter was dark and depressing. There seemed to be no lighter moments. Others may like the book but it is one that I will only read once.
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pete.w.
4.0 out of 5 stars Haweswater
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 20, 2003
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For a first novel this is a wonderful book.
Sarah portrays the characters and environment in a majestic fashion. As you read you really feel that you have become part of them.
I may be a bit bias because i love the Lake District and know the area well where the story is set.
But even so i would defy anyone who did'nt know the area to read this book and say they they had'nt been deeply moved by it.
But i do have to agree with one of the other reviewers that the ending was "too easy".
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