they ate one of the ducks, she tried not to think which one
the road from belhaven (margot livesey, 2024)
The Road from Belhaven (Margot Livesey, 2024)1
I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but sometimes I put books on hold at the library and then by the time they come up I’ve completely forgotten what they were or how I heard of them. For instance: I have absolutely no concept of how I came across the book and in fact I got maybe a quarter into it thinking it must be a reissue of some sort because the writing had a certain… heft? to it that caused me to think it was older. (It is not; it came out this year.) I had never heard of Margot Livesey—well I guess I had in the sense that I put this book on hold at some point for some reason, but not otherwise—and looking her up I discover she’s a writer in her seventies with an astonishingly prolific writing career.
I don’t have any explanations for any of this. Am I… stupid? Yes, probably, indeed that’s this Substack’s biggest theme, but that can’t be the whole answer here.2
But wow—I loved this book. Just loved it. I am keeping track of my reading on a little app and when I finished The Road from Belhaven and went to tag it “best-2024” I sort of wanted some special other tag like “really-best-2024” or “earned-the-superlative-2024” something along those lines.3 I went and checked out every other book of Livesey’s available and also bought some her books that were on sale. It was funny because just before starting it I was talking with Austin about happy endings in books and how Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Gate of Angels always feels like one of the most successfully, persuasively “happy” books to me. I won’t get into the actual ending of The Road from Belhaven but it has a similar buoyancy to it even when the events of the book get quite heavy (as they do in The Gate of Angels).
Lizzie is a girl growing up on her grandfather’s farm in Scotland in the late 1800s. Her parents are deceased and her older sister lives with her other set of grandparents. She is intelligent but mostly a normal girl, except that every once in a while she can see into the future.4 These glimpses of the future are fragmentary—she doesn’t know when things will happen, or the context in which these things happen, just that they will happen. Her efforts to prevent some of her visions from coming to pass are fruitless. She also can’t make the visions come on—they just do, sometimes. As gifts go, it is not very useful.5 Eventually, she falls in love with a handsome young man named Louis and follows him to Glasgow. He’s a tailor’s apprentice, but when his years of apprenticeship are over they will be married. So he says, so Lizzie thinks, but Lizzie’s grandfather distrusts Louis for his universally pleasing manner and he might just have a point….
Still, the story of Lizzie and Louis is the book’s most easily summarized plotline but perhaps its least interesting. What is really great about this book are Lizzie’s other relationships: the warm but difficult love of her grandfather, the envious but deep affection she feels for her older sister. Her rootedness in the life of the farm, her love of the animals. Paragraphs that are somehow expansive and compressed at once, like this one:
At school, Miss Urquhart taught the older pupils about the pathetic fallacy. As rational beings, she said, we know the weather doesn’t care whether we behave well or badly, although poets often suggest the contrary. But day after day, as the rain fell, or the fog hung over the fields, or the sleet cracked against the windows, it was hard not to believe that Belhaven, and its inhabitants, were being punished. No wonder Hugh had wanted to go to Glasgow. One morning she and Morag arrived at school to find the room filled with smoke: a nest had fallen down the chimney. As she opened a window, Miss Urquhart reminded them of the date: the Ides of March. “Remember, children, we read about that in Julius Caesar.” Throughout the day they shivered with the windows open or coughed with them closed. When the last bell rang, she and Morag ran to Morag’s house; then Lizzie kept running to get warm.
I dunno! I dunno! I just loved this book. Sue me! Well please don’t, I have no money. Also if you are the reason I read this book please let me know.
Thinking about this book and The Gate of Angels made me think about two competing lists—one being, “satisfying depictions of happiness” and the other being something like “satisfying depictions of childhood in the country.” The Road from Belhaven is both of these things.
The second category is a bit easier: The Pursuit of Love (Nancy Mitford) and O Caledonia! (Elspeth Barker) both come to mind. Maybe the film My Brilliant Career, though that might qualify for “happiness” too.
Under happiness, I would put the movie I Know Where I’m Going! But after that… I know there are other books that fall under this category for me, but for some reason I’m not thinking of any of them. I can certainly come up with unsatisfying portrayals of happiness (such as the epilogue to War and Peace). But surely there’s something obvious here that’s slipping my mind… perhaps I’ll think of it once I hit “send.” Anyway, I made this a standalone email because I’m curious what other people think.
On another note: I have contractual girlfriend obligations to mention that Austin’s new book, Fight Me, is coming out soon! Right now it doesn’t have an American publication date, just one in the UK—but you can pre-order it here with shipping included! If you want a smart book about superheroes from somebody who was being smart about superheroes before Iron Man ever came out, you should check it out.
It’s a beautiful book, too. :) UK covers are always better looking anyways.
Also, it was the Met Gala yesterday! From my own archives, here is a piece I wrote about it in 2022. Maybe the last thing I wrote before everything went to hell.
ETA: Bookshop links are affiliate links I forgot to put that in the email don’t report me to the FEC!!!!
OK it can.
Right now the only other “best-2024” that was actually published in 2024 is Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz. OK then why isn’t that one in the capsule reviews, you might want to ask. The answer is that every time I try to write it up I just end up at “book good… good book.”
That she can see the future is in some ways so inessential to the book that I summarized it to two different people while completely forgetting this detail. Like I did the whole summary to Austin, drifted off to something else, then said “oh! also! she can see the future!”
Did anybody see that terrible movie with Nicolas Cage where he can see exactly five minutes into the future or something? Anyway.
i read Soon I Will Be Invincible many years ago and really liked it! pleasant surprise to learn about your connection, will check out the new one for sure
I love love love Penelope Fitzgerald, so immediately put this on the hold list, thank you. Happiness is such an interesting question because for some people it’s depictions border on saccharine (sorry, commenter above, but I can’t stand ‘Room with a View’), OR happiness is so hard won that the book isn’t happy at all, just the ending, OR are jolly but not happy. (Bertie (re-reading Wodehouse right now) is more sanguine than happy: he’s not deep enough to truly be happy, and one imagines that if he too were as penniless as his friends, he’d be as desperate too.)
I love the mention of ‘Emma’ and ‘Cold Comfort Farm.’ Through it has a bit of magical realism, I’d include ‘The Enchanted April.’
If we can allow children’s books (the list is still short but) I’d include Edith Nesbit’s stories about the Bastable children, and each individual Swallows and Amazons book.