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Fleeing war-torn London in 1941, gardener Gwen Davis leaves the "wild, lovely clutter" of the city for the safe haven of the English countryside. Unwilling to watch her beloved city crumble under the assault of incendiary German bombs, she accepts a position at a requisitioned estate in Devon, supervising the farming of potatoes for the war effort.
A 35-year old spinster with a wicked wit and a fondness for literature, Gwen arrives at her new post to find that the group of "Land Girls" she's to supervise have little interest in planting. They're far more eager to cultivate the human crop -- a regiment of Canadian soldiers stationed at the estate, awaiting their assignment. Allying herself with the Canadians' commanding officer, Gwen strategically wins the girls' cooperation by agreeing to a series of evening dances at which they may mix with the soldiers. Pleased to again be in control of her environment, Gwen makes two life-changing discoveries. The first is the existence of feelings she's never before allowed herself to experience. The second is a hidden, abandoned garden on the estate, the secrets of which Gwen is compelled to unlock.
With poignant, poetic mastery of her craft, Helen Humphreys has produced a smart, no-nonsense, and utterly sympathetic character in Gwen Davis. And as her affecting story unfolds and she plumbs the mysteries of gardening, readers too will explore the depths of the soil in which grow the tender shoots of love. (Fall 2002 Selection)
Beth Kephart - Book
“This novel...remains with the reader long after the last page is turned, and it feels like an evening walk through a pungent, private garden.”
Jessica Teisch - Bookmarks
“A beautiful novel with substance.”
Karen Campbell - Boston Globe
“Luminous....a stunningly beautiful little gem that lingers in the memory like the heady scent of a damask rose.”
Judy Gaither and Emily Gaither - The Democrat
“Multi-layered in its themes with an undercurrent of wartime passion and danger...unforgettable.”
Lisa Michaels
“Humphreys has a poet's eye, and the story is full of startling images that linger in the mind.”
Nancy Goodwin
“This is a book to read again and again. —Nancy Goodwin, author of A Year in our Gardens”
Rosellen Brown
“Those who, as children, loved The Secret Garden will hear its echo in The Lost Garden....[D]elicate, moving.”
Lee Milazzo - Dallas Morning News
“A graceful, poetic novel of love and loss in England during World War II.”
Catherine Newton - Morning Star-Telegram
“A story of longing, life and death—the stuff all great gardens are made of.”
Matthew Batt - San Francisco Chronicle
“Humphreys's affecting third novel never fails to couple the realistic with the ideal, the historical with the timeless.”
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
A beautiful evocation of love and loss....Subtle and deeply affecting....Rich and satisfying.
Margot Livesey
“A finely wrought novel....What brings Gwen to life and makes this novel work is Humphreys's meticulous, lucid prose.”
Book
This novel...remains with the reader long after the last page is turned, and it feels like an evening walk through a pungent, private garden.— Beth Kephart
Bookmarks
A beautiful novel with substance.— Jessica Teisch
Boston Globe
Luminous....a stunningly beautiful little gem that lingers in the memory like the heady scent of a damask rose.— Karen Campbell
The Democrat
Multi-layered in its themes with an undercurrent of wartime passion and danger...unforgettable.— Judy Gaither and Emily Gaither
Dallas Morning News
A graceful, poetic novel of love and loss in England during World War II.— Lee Milazzo
Morning Star-Telegram
A story of longing, life and death—the stuff all great gardens are made of.— Catherine Newton
San Francisco Chronicle
Humphreys's affecting third novel never fails to couple the realistic with the ideal, the historical with the timeless.— Matthew Batt
New York Times Book Review
A finely wrought novel....What brings Gwen to life and makes this novel work is Humphreys's meticulous, lucid prose.— Margot Livesey
Nancy Goodwin
This is a book to read again and again.
Rosellen Brown
Those who, as children, loved The Secret Garden will hear its echo in The Lost Garden....[D]elicate, moving .
The New Yorker
"Afterimage," the author's previous novel, described the life of a maidservant employed in the hectic household of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. In this measured, lyrical book, the locus is once again a large house deep in the English countryside -- but now it's 1941, and Gwen Davis, a desperately lonely botanist employed by the Royal Horticultural Society to investigate canker in parsnips, has signed up to direct young women agricultural volunteers on an estate requisitioned for the war effort. Humphreys is a metaphysical novelist; for her, intricate emotional content finds specific analogues in the made world -- an astonishing photograph or, as here, an overgrown garden that, once cleared, reveals its consoling secrets.
Beth Kephart
It is 1941, and London is beset by war. But out in the Devon countryside, on a ruined estate, a handful of young girls from the Woman's Land Army and a regiment of Canadian soldiers attempt to live and to love, to grow food and to train, while they wait for whatever will happen next. Told by Gwen Davis, an outwardly reserved thirty-five-year-old gardener, this novel reconstructs a held-breath moment in time and the emotional education of a woman who has never felt loved. Most exquisite when describing the discovered gardens of the estate, most haunting toward the end, the book feels at times more like a beautiful idea than a fully imagined story. Some characters are paper-thin, defined only by a tic or a hobby. Some of the dialogue is unnatural, stiff. And yet there is something lovely about the book as a whole. It remains with the reader long after the last page is turned, and it feels like an evening walk through a pungent, private garden.
Publishers Weekly
Evocative, if occasionally clunky, Humphreys's third novel (following Afterimage) is the story of an Englishwoman's search for her place in a world permeated by war. The narrator, 35-year-old Gwen Davis, is a horticulturist who flees bombed-out WWII London to manage a team of "land girls"-women who grow vegetables as part of the war effort-at a country estate. She struggles to manage her wayward charges, who are more interested in the Canadian soldiers billeted in the main house than in cultivating potatoes, and writes letters in her head to her idol Virginia Woolf, whose recent death has left her feeling bereft. She also tries to seduce the world-weary, hard-drinking Captain Raley, who has a secret of his own that dooms their relationship. Though her conflicts pale next to those of the soldiers waiting to be posted to battle and even those of her new friend, Jane, whose cousin is a casualty of war and whose fianc is missing in action, it is Gwen's quiet self-discovery that is at the center of the novel. Humphreys renders convincingly her first, fleeting experience of deep friendship and love. Unfortunately, the story is sometimes marred by overwrought or cloying prose, though Humphreys's language also has its moments of elegance (during the blitz, "houses become holes. Solids become spaces. Anything can disappear overnight"). Humphreys doesn't quite have the narrative energy of Pat Barker and Jane Gardam, but fans of those authors may enjoy this exploration of the impact of WWII on English life. Agent, Frances Hanna. 3-city author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
