The Western Wind

This novel covers the events of four days in the medieval village of Oakham, where the most important man, Tom Newman, has gone missing and is believed to have drowned in the river. The story is told backwards, beginning in the early hours of Shrove Tuesday and going back to Shrove (or Egg) Saturday. Contrary to what we might expect, as the story goes backward in time, more is revealed to us, not just about the context of events, but about what actually happened.

The narrator of the story is John Reve, the parish priest. His only living relative, his younger sister Annie, has just gotten married and moved to a different town with her husband. He struggles with loneliness and questions his vocation to the priesthood as he tries to guide the spiritual life of his parish. Tom Newman challenged his theological beliefs, but was also someone he could have a deep conversation with. In the story's present time, Reve is being challenged by the dean, a religious authority who reports to the bishop and who came at Reve's request to investigate Tom Newman's death. The dean is critical of the state in which he finds the parish, and wants Reve to name someone guilty of Newman's murder.

John Reve is caught in an intricate web of circumstances, some of which are his own fault and some of which are beyond anyone's control. I admire the way everything is set up, and the way we see the push and pull between Reve's compassion for the suffering of people in his parish and his realism about their capacity to overcome their circumstances. Whenever I started to get tired of his disgusted lament that “Oakham is a backward, muddy little hole that will never amount to anything,” he switched to “But it's golden in summer!”

I'm not sure whether telling the story backwards really adds anything, except that it corresponds to an idea of Reve's about reassuring his people that Newman's soul has passed into heaven. I do feel that it adds a little confusion about the order of events, and I'm not sure it's worth it for that. Otherwise, I recommend this heart-tugging book.