The Gardener

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Knowing she will need help with the heavy digging required, she employs Murat, an Albanian refugee to help her in the garden.

The Gardener (Audio Download): Salley Vickers, Salley Vickers

It’s a question that’s especially compelling in a world that insists on segregating science practitioners, saddling them with notions of genius and eccentricity. The simply glorious descriptions of birds and flowers moving through the seasons just made this tale of the countryside sing for me. It does take a little while to become oriented in The Gardener, but I found the process was worth it. When I saw that Salley Vickers’ eleventh novel, The Gardener, had been released, I looked out for it on my next library trip. Margot is unlikeable with her cattiness and her above-everyoneness, and Hass is not much better, quibbling with every action and decision her sister makes, both past and present; being overly gossipy about her parents and what they were like before they lost them.If this were an American book, it would be a Debbie Macomber; but it’s Vickers’ uniquely British gentleness that makes The Gardener a comfortable, comforting read. This is also tied in neatly with a figure in the church, said to be the miracle-working St Milburga, a seventh century Anglo-Saxon head of two monastic houses, one for women, one for men, and the aforementioned pool. From these basics, Vickers explores Hassie’s traumatic affair, her prickly relationship with Margot, her exploration of the history of Nelly East and of Knight’s Fee, her wrestling with the misery of artistic hack work doing the illustrations for ‘Elfine’ whom she loathes, her growing interest in and talent as a botanical artist, her sense of the otherworldly in the garden, and her discovery of what love might and can actually be.

The Gardener (Audio Download): Salley Vickers, Salley Vickers The Gardener (Audio Download): Salley Vickers, Salley Vickers

Alongside Hassie’s present day existence, we learn very early on that she is still locked into her childhood, and the pains which have filled her past.Of Margot, Hassie reveals: ‘I was never quite sure what it was that Margot did do but it appeared to pay. A run-in with a young girl, Penny Lane (there are a lot of weird names in this book, it has to be said), creates a tipping point in the story, which is perhaps the only bit that doesn’t quite ring true. For Edward Carey, author of, among other novels, the triumphantly idiosyncratic Little, pandemic displacement activity has yielded an archive of drawings that began with a doodle and soon became a pledge to produce one a day, duly posted on social media. Lovely in parts, and I wanted to enjoy, but not a fan of a book where the characters are terrible to the Muslim character and… nobody is ever held to account?

Salley Vickers | Best-selling British Author Salley Vickers | Best-selling British Author

During the course of the book, there are some fabulous descriptions of nature – the very act of reading about gardening, flowers, the earth and the wildlife is calming and felt therapeutic to me. Together, these elements form a notion of the healing force present in nature, and the ever-present possibility of rebirth and joy. Salley Vickers was born in Liverpool, the home of her mother, and grew up as the child of parents in the British Communist Party.

This new full-time post of Lead Area Director of Ordinands offers the opportunity to play a key role in leading this exciting ministry of discernment and preparation of ordinands. She throws herself into restoring the garden with the help of an Albanian refugee who just happens to have ended up in the village and turns out to be remarkably capable of any job that needs doing (thus a stereotypical refugee) and forging friendships with the odd-ball villagers. We witness her growing self-awareness and fulfilment, through her garden — “my small private paradise which I felt honoured to share with the birds” — and through her connectedness with landscape, trees, animals, a snail, the weather, and through her many literary recollections, including Emily Brontë, T.