A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
A "fiercely intelligent . . . daring, and very moving" about an
English village haunted by one family's loss--for readers of The Virgin
Suicides and Zadie Smith's NW (George Saunders, The Paris Review
Daily).
Midwinter in an English village. A teenage girl has gone missing.
Everyone is called upon to join the search. The villagers fan out across
the moors as the police set up roadblocks and a crowd of news reporters
descends on what is usually a place of peace. Meanwhile, there is work
that must still be done: cows milked, fences repaired, stone cut, pints
poured, beds made, sermons written, a pantomime rehearsed.
As the seasons unfold and the search for the missing girl goes on, there
are those who leave the village and those who are pulled back; those who
come together and those who break apart. There are births and deaths;
secrets kept and exposed; livelihoods made and lost; small kindnesses
and unanticipated betrayals. An extraordinary novel of cumulative power
and grace, Reservoir 13 explores the rhythms of the natural world and
the repeated human gift for violence, unfolding over thirteen years as
the aftershocks of a tragedy refuse to subside.
"Jon McGregor has revolutionized that most hallowed of mystery plots:
the one where some foul deed takes place in a tranquil English village
that . . . doesn't feel so tranquil anymore."** --The Wall Street
Journal**
