Reservoir 13: A Novel

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The lives of a wide range of characters from the village; village politics – particularly the workings of the parish council and the interactions with other authorities; But McGregor gives equal attention to the rhythms of the natural world - crops, flowers and trees, and wildlife - foxes, badgers, swallows and herons. I suspect the book will jump from Man Book long list to shortlist because the judges will like this juxtaposition. For me I'm still not convinced both work in the same book, but I still can't sort it all out. This is decidedly not the read for someone looking for a thrill.

I loved this wonderfully written novel with it’s beautifully detailed prose and unusual style. Winner of the Costa Book Award and Booker nominee, Reservoir 13 was such a fulfilling read.We are there, in the chill and the dark, watching the leaves turn and the wildlife preparing for winter. Even today, almost half a century on, time is the cornerstone of the modern village tale. It’s there in Lucy Wood’s Weathering, a haunted house saga of sorts in which a family inheritance weighs like a damp burden. It’s there in Harrison’s At Hawthorn Time, a sharp evocation of a collapsed rural community, where the tractor drivers now work as Uber drivers and the “new estates [are] named after the places the developers had destroyed”. It can also be found in Tom Cox’s rambunctious, non-fiction 21st Century Yokel, in which the freewheeling author attempts (with varied success) to anchor himself in old traditions; swinging between the May Day festivals, fetes and scarecrow competitions in both Norfolk and Devon. Then there is one recent book that looms above all the rest. However, normal life slowly starts to resume and the rhythms of life take over. Relationships start and fail, people move away and new people arrive, businesses struggle, farmers go about their business, secrets are uncovered, the wildlife hibernates and reawakens as the seasons change and roll around - life goes on. I finished this yesterday mid-morning. I’m still thinking about it. I had a few discussions already. It is all so fine that I eventually came to view the book as a piece of music containing repeated notes:

A book of rhythms to be taken slowly. Don’t expect a fast paced mystery. Devour every word and every moment. This isn't a who-dunnit crime novel full of suspense and action. This is a quietly beautifully written novel, that draws you into the life of the village and its residents over a 14/15 year period. How the villagers react and cope with the girls disappearance, and the dark shadow looming over them of her unknown whereabouts. People in villages- and cities - all over the world - go on with their daily routines: feed animals ...get married.. break up... have drinks at the local pub... have Christmas parties... go to social dances... kids go to school.. Inevitably with such a large cast, some characters fail to feel as fully realised as others and McGregor is not in the business of definitive resolutions. But there is no doubt that Reservoir 13 is an extraordinary achievement; a portrait of a community that leaves the reader with an abiding affection for its characters, because we recognise their follies and frailties and the small acts of kindness and courage that bind them together. He felt as though he were holding the three of them, holding this room, this house. They made him feel at once immensely capable and immensely not up to the task.”

Reservoir 13 is an extraordinary achievement; a portrait of a community that leaves the reader with an abiding affection for its characters, because we recognise their follies and frailties and the small acts of kindness and courage that bind them together." - Observer (UK)

Looking at his own work, McGregor was only too aware that in Reservoir 13 he could have written a “great state-of-the-nation thing about the farming crisis, the land use crisis, the housing crisis”. His research took him to villages where people commute into office jobs in Sheffield or Manchester, while rural workers can only afford to live in the cities: the two groups drive past each other morning and evening – a brilliant image of the messed-up housing market. But he stresses that he’s “allergic to trying to make points in fiction”. With his antipathy towards “big drama” he was also relieved to have sandwiched the book between the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001 and the Brexit vote. He did, though, find himself last June mentally dividing the characters into leavers and remainers. “I started looking at them while I was editing, thinking OK, so which one of you … and realised that yes, I probably could tell.” All this means that I've been really moved thinking about what Jon McGregor did in the structure and style of this novel. It's a revelatory depiction of what it means to live in a community and society. But, at the same time, when I was actually reading it I found my mind so often drifting to other things and I found it difficult to concentrate on. McGregor's successful stylistic choices effectively convey powerful meaning, but at the expense of a wholly immersive story. So it depends what kind of reading experience you're after. If you want a book you can meditate on and get more out of by reading it a second time around, “Reservoir 13” is a great book. But it's not the kind of novel that pulls you into the text so that you entirely forget that the world exists around you – at least, it didn't do that for me reading it for the first time. Ordinary things,” the novelist Marilynne Robinson once remarked, “have always seemed numinous to me.” Jon McGregor may not share Robinson’s preoccupation with the divine, but few writers have more consistently affirmed the luminous dignity of the everyday. The whole village spreads out across the moors looking for this 13 year old girl who simply vanished without a trace. They search everywhere, and for the next 13 years, everyone touched by her disappearance and even the generation that comes next will always see that as a demarcation line in the history of the town.

Changes over time for: The Reservoirs Act 1975 (Capacity, Registration, Prescribed Forms, etc.) (England) Regulations 2013

In April he first swallows were seen, swooping low over the pastures in the early morning and taking the insects which rose with the dew. And still the sound of a helicopter clattering by was never just the sound of a helicopter but everything that sound had once meant. Beautifully written, with an ever-present sense of the narrator being less of a person or a being, and more as the all-seeing village that overlooks all, and looks over all. It looks over the landscape that surrounds them, the village and the villagers, watching as life changes with the seasons and the passing of time. I'm not sure that the world needs another review of this fine novel, so I'm going to keep this short. I think by now most of you may already know the basics: the novel opens as a search begins for a teenage girl, Rebecca Shaw, who has gone missing while her family was vacationing in the village for the New Year. However, the novel is not a mystery or a thriller, but instead provides, year by year, micro-updates on life in the village. Each of the novel's 13 chapters covers one year, just as the village itself is surrounded by 13 reservoirs, which feature both in the searches for Rebecca Shaw and in the events in and around the village. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial.