The Long Dry

By Cynan Jones

As a Welsh farmer plows through a long, hot day, the boundaries blur between animal and human in this acclaimed, award-winning novel.
 
On a long, hot day, Gareth searches for a missing pregnant cow. A dog must be put down, there are ducks to go in the pond, there are children, and there is Kate, his wife, who may be an uncrossable distance from him. Jones’s rural Wales is alive with the necessities of our own animal instincts and most human longing.
 
“Even when nothing is happening in Jones’s fiction, a lot is happening, and the natural settings are bountifully alive.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“[The Long Dry] seethes with the brutal squelch of farming, breeding, bleeding, death, and soars with moments of shuddering human frailty and grace.” —The Boston Globe
 
“The light in this dark tale . . . comes via its language. Jones writes about this mucky, perilous landscape with a simplicity and passion that evoke Seamus Heaney’s poetry.” —Kirkus Reviews
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781566894746

Reviews for The Long Dry

[mikefarquhar · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Long Dry by Cynan Jones is a short novel that has a deceptively simple plot - a Welsh farmer wakes one morning to discover one of his calving cows is missing, and goes in search of her on a blistering hot day - with a lot lurking just underneath the surface.Gareth's search for the missing cow is interspersed both by intrusions from his present and the past, and themes of loss, dependence, the relation between the old ways of living and the new, and how the land shapes those who live on it emerge. The search becomes emblematic of something deeper, as Gareth's relationship with his wife and family is examined through a kaleidoscope, showing the fragility and the strength in everything they have been through together. Loss and achievement, hope and despair reverberate through past, present and - in a deft piece of narrative where the reader is granted a glimpse a few days into the future which throws Gareth's day into all too harsh perspective - future, painting a picture of lives lived that is bittersweet to taste.There's a lot of powerful and evocative imagery buried within this, and it is used to great effect. Small, but punches well above its weight.I need to read something happy. The last two books I've read have both been great, but man, they've been a bit on the bleak side...

[librarianbryan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An accurate portrayal of the beauty of country life. The Welsh setting just makes me like it more. There is tragedy here, but all life is tragic whether you're a country mouse or a city mouse.