Engaged to restore a medieval church painting in the tiny Yorkshire village of Oxgodby, Birkin experiences a sense of renewal which reflects his work reviving the mural. Tom Birkin is a traumatised First World War veteran, with the characteristic twitch and stammer of shellshock, and a stoic unwillingness to discuss the horrors he has been forced to witness. The protagonist of JL Carr’s A Month in the Country is also looking to escape. The word has returned to its core meaning seeking distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, essentially, seeking a means of escape. During lockdown, literary escapism no longer has to mean retreating to fantasy worlds or sweeping dramas. If I wanted to read a dystopian novel, I could just pick up the papers. Maybe, in normal times, I’d do the same – but since the start of March, the world itself has not been lacking in substance or tension. It’s easy to bypass the thin classic with its dated cover for meatier books, searching for something with ostensibly more substance, tension, excitement. The novella is a volume as subtle and slender as its plot happens to be. It might be that I’d never heard of it because I’m not an English student, but I’m not so sure. During the malaise of lockdown, I’ve been gravitating towards shorter fiction, and one of my recent Waterstones sprees took in Jean Rhys and Albert Camus before leading me to a title and author I didn’t recognise, JL Carr’s A Month in the Country. I’d like to think I’m not the only person who’s spent lockdown with my cheek pressed to a window and my nose in a book, longing to be anywhere – literally anywhere! – which isn’t my parents’ house.

A month in the country carr