Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter hearkens back to another era, not just in action but in its writing. Set in 1962 during one of the coldest winters in UK history, the novel follows two couples in tense marriages as they endure physical and emotional isolation. Eric and Irene are well-to-do: Eric as a doctor and Irene a devoted homemaker. Bill and Rita run a small farm and come from more colorful upbringings: Bill, the child of an immigrant, and Rita, a former showgirl. Both wives are pregnant, and both feel the impending breakdown in their sense of self. Just as the cultural touchstones of this book are of the past, so is its construction. The Land in Winter is a slow, character-focused narrative with prose that is both rich and commonplace. The novel’s simplicity and pacing feel of the past, with the dense metaphorical language and interiority of contemporary writing. Readers of Claire Keegan and Richard Yates alike would find this novel satisfying.
The novel’s opening introduces us to the sensory deprivation of both death and winter, with Martin, a character whose significance becomes apparent later, wakes from a flat plank “like a man emerging from his own coffin.” He feels around for his possessions and finds his bearings. This chapter, only a few pages, sets a gently haunting tone that traces through the novel. We are then introduced to Eric, a young doctor on rounds. He is a profoundly unhappy man with little regard for others, especially his wife Irene, and placates himself with his work and his ongoing affair with a married woman. Nearby, we meet Bill and his efforts to comingle his farming aspirations with his fairly new marriage to the effervescent Rita. While their marriage is not loveless, it is marred with secrecy and doubt. A slow friendship forms between Rita and Irene, both pregnant and without close family, and the two learn from one another and from each other’s social class.
Tensions mount on Boxing Day, when Eric and Irene throw a party and Bill and Rita attract more than their fair share of attention. Things continue to splinter as the temperatures drop and snow falls over the UK, grounding things to a halt and forcing a closeness that neither couple is prepared for. We don’t understand the calamities that this winter will cause until later in the book, but there are omens scattered throughout. A cow with a stillborn calf. A mentally ill man who has died by suicide. An envelope with calligraphy on the front. Miller understands that the content of a narrative is only half the story; the rest is its rendering. In relatively short chapters, Miller hops between perspectives with ease, giving us self-serving Eric, martyr Irene, idealistic Bill, and scattered Rita. We never mistake one storyline for another, and whether there are characters to root for is less important than how they themselves view their lives.
Broadly speaking, the novel does not cast commentary from the present over this narrative of the past. In this respect, it feels familiar, like a work of historical fiction in its distance from our norms, such as the myriad descriptions of drinking and smoking during pregnancy. Some things, however, feel hauntingly familiar, such as the treatment of mental illness and class divisions. Most insidious is an emphasis on female sexual morals, showing us that not much has changed since the time of this novel to now.
With a slow burn novel comes a lull in its pacing. Many readers may find a ‘novel about seemingly nothing’ to prove an unsatisfying read, and even those who are along for the ride may be startled by the book’s final section, which is a comparatively fast-paced piece of pandemonium with sudden high stakes. To challenge this notion, though, the stakes do not feel as unexpected when one considers the aforementioned portents, the metaphors and symbols Miller uses to illustrate his message from the very first pages. This is perhaps the best way to describe The Land in Winter: crafted, often exquisitely so, and full of rewards for the patient reader.
FICTION
By Andrew Miller
Europa Editions
Published November 11, 2025
