Mary Hocking has been a rather delightful discovery this year – and The Very Dead of Winter is the fourth novel I have read. She is the kind of writer that will be appreciated by fans of Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym, although she isn’t exactly like either of them – there are traits however – her canvases are small, and her observations of people and family life acute.
“The beginning of the journey had been enchanting. Porcelain blue sky and the sparkling white canopy transformed dingy streets into fantasies of unimagined purity and, passing out of the town, they came to broad fields where sunlight reflected a trellis of branches like veins across the snow.”
With the countryside and surrounding woodland deep in snow, a fractured family gather for Christmas at a remote country cottage. The cottage is where sisters Sophia and Florence spent childhood holidays and was once owned by their grandmother. Sophia – who now owns the cottage has not seen Florence in years. Florence her dying husband Konrad and their adult children Nick and Anita gather at Sophia’s cottage for the season and to ease Konrad’s passing. While Florence is dominating and confrontational, Sophia used to living alone, is unorthodox, guarding secrets and managing to keep herself somewhat distanced from the turmoil around her. It is only Sophia who is able to face the face that Konrad will die in the next few days. Nick, a traveller and explorer – is already contemplating his next trip, while Anita ten years into a disfunctional relationship seems to delight in going into combat with her mother on a regular basis. Anita’s partner sets out to join the family for Christmas – but running into trouble he ends up injured and marooned in another local house. Upstairs, Konrad is watched over by each member of the family in turn, Konrad originally from Germany is a painter, his painting never tolerated by his wife, who had never enquired where it was he would disappear to when he needed to paint.
“Konrad lay concentrating on his breathing, which required an effort he was less and less inclined to make. He heard the two sisters talking but could not make much sense of what was said. He had always had difficulty piecing things together. Now, lying here in this firelit room, the past came before him vividly, but disjointed.
He had been sent to England in 1937 when he was six years old. He never saw his parents again. He lived in Houndsditch with an aunt and uncle who had not wanted him but had not had the courage to refuse him. The experience had permanently disoriented him and he had great difficulty making a mental map of his environment – one street did not lead to another but existed in isolation. He was always getting lost. When the war came and the bombers broke up the patterns of streets he was cheered by the experience of a shared chaos.”
People from the local woodland community are invited to a party on Christmas Eve – a party that is not a great success, included in the invitation are another fragile family. Thomas Challoner; grieving the death of his wife and son, his damaged young grandson Andrew and Francis – their self-imposed carer and sister to Andrew’s absent mother live in another cottage deep in the woods. Francis is immediately attracted to Nick, whose selfishness doesn’t stop him from telling her she is wasting her life caring for these people she has come to love.
As the snow continues to fall and Christmas comes, Konrad does indeed die –causing the family to face up to certain truths.
The very Dead of Winter is an atmospheric novel about family and different kinds of love. Mary Hocking writes with feeling and deftly explores the emotional upheavals of family life and the conflicts of the past.
This was the first of my Christmas reads – I will probably intersperse them with non-Christmassy books – and although this novel is set at Christmas – it doesn’t ram the season down your throat – making it a great read for anytime of the year. The title is wonderfully apt and adds perfectly to the atmosphere of the novel – and is probably why I saved it to read now – and I must admit to rather loving the cover art. ( )

The Very Dead of Winter by Mary Hocking (4 stars)

A very appropriate title for this book; The Very Dead of Winter. Konrad is dying. His wife Florence wants to take him and have their two children, Nicholas & Anita, meet them at her sister, Sophia's home deep in the wood. The house belonged to the sister's grandmother before them and they almost always spent the holidays there with all of the family. Sophia has never married and lives there with her nearly feral cat and a few neighbors scattered throughout the wood.
They all drive the dangerously icy roads to Aunt Sophia's and arrive safely except for Anita's boyfriend who comes on alone and is in an accident & taken to the nearest house with several bad breaks in his body. We don't see nor hear too much of him. But we do get to meet most of the neighbors as they are invited in supposedly to cheer up the younger siblings. It doesn't work. They remain grumpy throughout most of the time there.
Konrad is put to bed upstairs and is medicated and sleeps or drowses most of the time but there is always someone sitting with him for they know he is not going to get well and will most likely not live to return home. Sophie sees this before the others.
During their time there, the family comes to see that Konrad and Sophia know each other much better than was assumed. He is a painter and Florence has not appreciated his paintings. She thinks them too dark. So he went away much of the time to do his painting. She never asked him where he went. But while at Sophia's, she & the children soon realize that this is where he went to do his painting and that he and Sophia are indeed close.
This is called a "haunting novel" but I did not find it so. Neither did I find it to be mysterious. There is a lot of emotional interacting within the players in the story and I think it a marvelous story. It just wasn't what I was anticipating. I find Mary Hocking to be a lovely writer. She never disappoints. ( )