Overview

Faced with the sudden prospect of uprooting her young children to move to the US, while her eldest fly the nest to university, the acclaimed memoirist and nature writer considers what home means, and what ties us to the places we love. What is it that makes a home? What is a home without the roots that tie you to a place? What is a home when a family is split? Clover's eldest children are leaving home for university. Her husband Pete's work is in America. The only way for Clover and the younger children to live with him is to uproot, leave their rural life near the ancient Ridgeway in Oxfordshire and move to Washington DC. Forced to leave the home she loves and consider these questions, Clover sets out to explore the place where she lives, walk the Ridgway, understand a little of the history of her landscape and work out why it is that it is so hard for her to go. In doing so she paints a beautifully layered portrait of family, community and of belonging in a landscape that has drawn people to it for generation after generation.

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9780857529152

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Reviews

Clover Stroud is expert at bringing her reader right to the heart of her longing. Her writing is intimate and warm, honest and generous. A true memoirist, she looks to people and place as her canvas, in this case the psychic and physical hold of the landscape and what we call home. The Giant on the Skyline is timeless and yet firmly rooted in time, magical and mysterious and yet earthy and sensual. It is full of personality, humour and heart and I did not want it to end. -- Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father In this new giant of a book, perhaps Clover’s most profound and moving, and unquestionably her most soaringly beautiful, Clover Stroud confronts the wrench from a place that might define her and shows how the resounding power of love tethers the soul. -- Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake I can’t remember the last time I underlined so much and folded down so many pages in a book the way I have with this. What a wonderful, wise, magical book. I’ve loved all Clover Stroud’s books but The Giant on the Skyline is really quite incredible. -- Rachael Lucas, author of The Cottage on the Shore Clover has turned her truth-seeing gaze on a tiny corner of the English landscape. This book is drenched in some of the most brilliant writing about place I’ve read in a long while. It’s as evocative as Laurie Lee, chalked up with Clover’s incisive, poetic encounters with magic, pain and belonging. A beautiful book, written in lyrical, liquid prose that seems to flow straight from the heart to the page. -- Sophy Roberts, author of Lost Pianos of Siberia I was captivated by the intimacy of Clover’s writing about home, and what it means to her. The honesty and creativity with which she mines her life and heart are inspirational on so many levels. I sat down to read a chapter or two, and finished almost the entire book in a sitting - somehow this is what always happens to me with Clover’s work. Few writers I know have this intense intimacy, or such an immediately engaging effect on a reader. It really is magic. -- Lucy Atkins, author of Windmill Hill

Clover Stroud is expert at bringing her reader right to the heart of her longing. Her writing is intimate and warm, honest and generous. A true memoirist, she looks to people and place as her canvas, in this case the psychic and physical hold of the landscape and what we call home. The Giant on the Skyline is timeless and yet firmly rooted in time, magical and mysterious and yet earthy and sensual. It is full of personality, humour and heart and I did not want it to end. -- Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father In this new giant of a book, perhaps Clover’s most profound and moving, and unquestionably her most soaringly beautiful, Clover Stroud confronts the wrench from a place that might define her and shows how the resounding power of love tethers the soul. -- Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake

Author Information

Clover Stroud is a writer and journalist, writing regularly for the Sunday Times, the Guardian and the Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, among others. She also hosts a popular podcast called Tiny Acts of Bravery. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild and Sleepless Nights- A Mother's Story, and third book, The Red of My Blood- A Death and Life Story, were instant Sunday Times bestsellers and rated 'best books of the year'. She is currently living in Washington DC with her husband and the youngest three of her five children.

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