This was a good book from page 1 but like an idiot I started it and set it aside. Perhaps only this month have I been ready to share the poignancy and sharp-eyed observations that the author brings to his exploring of a patch of land on the outskirts of the Yorkshire town where I was born.
Tracing the seasons through various human and animal interactions, Rob Cowan goes beyond the descriptive and autoethnographic - although there is plenty of both - to produce a genuinely bold and original piece of nature writing: the vision of countless hunted deaths in the eye of a deer; the mayfly courtships of young people by the river; the painful reflection on nettles from a fragile returning war hero: these get thick-description fictionalised episodes as we tramp with Rob the woods and “wasteland” of Bilton over the course of his and his partner Rosie’s waiting for their baby.
The author wishes it were a “neater story,” but in truth it could not be other than it is: a bold and utterly engrossing piece of original new nature writing, vivid and informative and engaging.