Foxash: 'A wonderfully atmospheric and deeply unsettling novel' Sarah Waters

Reviews

lilysmum

The Rapunzel lettuce plays a large part in this novel; the main character is called Lettie and together with her husband Tommy she embarks on a journey to Essex to start a new life after some unexplained incident in their former life prompts them to move. I hadn’t heard of this book, but when Sarah Waters recommended it, I knew I’d have to give it a read. In 1934 the Land Settlement Association was established in Britain to lead a ‘back to the land’ movement to improve food security within the country.

There are strange desires, dark passions and jealousies. The unemployed miners and labourers identified were moved largely to Essex and Suffolk and trained to set up small holdings. Lettie and Tommy are mentored by their neighbours and experienced farmers Adam and Jean Dell. Foxash by Kate WorsleyIf you like a bit of folk horror with your historical fiction, or if you enjoyed Starveacre, that haunting novel by Andrew Michael Hurley, you might really savour this darkly strange story.

And when the corn dollies appear, well, you know you’re in for a treat. An uneasy friendship develops and things become quite macabre. One of the crops grown on the small holdings was the so-called ‘miner’s lettuce’, which was used to treat scurvy during the C19th.