Another of P’s from the library.
Totally different from 506 - if that was a quasi 18th century novel about society, this was very 20th century, alternating chapter by chapter with largely interior monologues between father and son, both pretty unhappy people, mourning a lost wife/mother and their individual failures and leading a pretty hard life in rural Suffolk.
They have returned to Suffolk from a disastrous but economically enforced trip to farm in Zambia, in which the wife/mother was murdered by local employees, for reasons not 100% clear but for which the father blames himself.
The son, in a fit of anger with his father steals a boat with his drunken mate Tom, who is badly injured in the ensuing accident.
Father is basically a simple farmer who loves his animals especially a dog and the local fox, which he identifies with his dead wife. Both animals die towards the end, but father and son survive, possibly and not easily reconciled.
Slightly hard work, but I thought very good.
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