Publication Date: December 29, 2015
Source: Vine
New Year’s
Eve, Dorset, England, 1946. Candles flicker, a gramophone scratches out a tune
as guests dance and sip champagne— for one night Hartgrove Hall relives better
days. Harry Fox-Talbot and his brothers have returned from World War II
determined to save their once grand home from ruin. But the arrival of
beautiful Jewish wartime singer Edie Rose tangles the threads of love and duty,
and leads to a devastating betrayal.
Fifty years later, now a celebrated composer, Fox reels from the death of his
adored wife, Edie. Until his connection with his four-year old grandson - a
music prodigy – propels him back into life, and ultimately to confront his
past. An enthralling novel about love and treachery, joy after grief, and a man
forced to ask: is it ever too late to seek forgiveness?
I became a fan of Natasha Solomons upon reading The
House of Tyneford, which was a romantic and emotionally gripping historical
fiction set in World War II-era England.
The Song of Hartgrove Hall has alternating timelines from the point of
view of the youngest of three English sons, Fox: one is post-World War II when
Fox is a young man just back from the war and the other Fox as an elderly man
mourning the recent loss of his beloved wife, Edie. Much of the past storyline
centers around Fox pining for his brother’s girlfriend – whom you know, upon
reading the future chapters, will eventually become his wife. There is no suspense on whether they will end
up together or not. The romantic suspense is in the how, which is related to
the overarching theme of novel, that of music.
The Song of Hartgrove Hall has got to be one the
best novels I’ve ever read which paints a vivid “picture” of how music inspires
feeling, how it transports. The young Fox is a fledgling, amateur composer, who
hides his passion from his military father. He goes around the English
countryside listening to folk songs and setting them down to paper so that they
will not be lost.
“He closes his eyes and starts to sing. He calls to
the wind and curses the rain and the sky and the cruelty of the fate that
leaves him out on the bare hillside while rich men snooze by their fires. His voice shakes with fervor, and there’s an
anger, raw and fierce, and he is both the singer and the song. This isn’t a sentimental lament ruing some idealised
past but a personal cry. The sound seems
to grow from the soil itself is somehow familiar as though I’ve heard it before
and forgotten. I want to catch hold of
it, to fix this moment, and then he stops and it’s lost, but so am I.”
We know from the future chapters that at some
point, Fox becomes a successful, professional composer, and that somehow it is
music that brings he and Edie together.
While the early chapters are ones of hope and longing, the future ones
are of loss and lament. Again, Solomons uses a painterly language for music to
uplift and transcend the grieving Fox. I found myself eagerly looking forward
to the musical passages that wove through the novel like lovely interludes.
“I’m struck with nostalgia for things I’ve never
known. I yearn for a world unmapped, filled with hidden places and wild things,
where there are still dark places
concealed deep in the woods where people dare not go. A place of long-forgotten
songs.”
