Post-war malaise has always been fertile ground for narratives of existential angst, and they don’t come much more subtle or gently emotive than this. ‘Wintering’, which tells the story of the breakdown and subsequent redemption of a young family in the early ’50s, favours understatement over melodrama and quietly gestures towards deep despair.
Recently bankrupted Jim Palmer moves his family from London, where he used to own a Jaguar dealership, to a sleepy village near Glastonbury Tor. Each member of the family experiences this radical shake-up of their lives in unexpected ways. Jim struggles to conceal his affairs from idle villagers and slips into an identity crisis, while his wife finds a new lease of life with the village amateur dramatic society. Meanwhile, their children, Billy and Sarah, have battles of their own as they try to win favour with the school bullies.
This may seem like inoffensive stuff, but somewhere along the way Derek Johns creates something genuinely moving and insightful. The sense of interiority, particularly during Billy’s episodes, is enchanting. Despite there being nothing strikingly original going on in the plot department, ‘Wintering’ is a nostalgic and deeply atmospheric novel that reads like a gentle spring breeze.
