In the Place of Fallen Leaves

Starred review from January 2, 1995
In this piercingly beautiful, fiercely lyrical first novel, narrator Alison Freemantle, 13, awakens to love, sexuality, death, class divisions and the mystery of life on a farm in a Devonshire village during the summer of 1984. Alison's father drinks himself into a stupor on rough cider and neglects her overworked, unhappy mother. Pamela, her older sister who's always preoccupied with dating, seems remote. Her two brothers-Ian, an insomniac chess prodigy, and Tom, a bumpkin who feels closer to animals than to people until he falls swooningly, comically in love-will come to blows over the same girl. Meanwhile, Jonathan, a viscount's son, rescues Alison from drowning, but their platonic friendship is declared off-limits after a barn they explore accidentally catches fire. Through stories told to Alison by her crippled grandmother, the lives of the girl's relatives and of villagers-their tragedies, courtships and crises, over 50 years-are revealed. Pears evokes unspoken bonds of love, a sense of community, organic connectedness to nature in a remarkable debut, a work shot through with moments of great tenderness, beauty and emotional power.