Harvest

Told from Walter Thirsk’s perspective, Harvest (2013), a literary/historical novel by Jim Crace, deals with themes of displacement and progress. Set in a remote English village, the story is about the village’s response to external threats to its ways of life: a lean harvest, the Enclosure Acts and the arrival of three strangers displaced by it, a mapmaker that comes to town to survey the land, and a greedy land-grabber who wants to replace the crops with sheep, funneling the village profits into his own pockets.

The novel opens with the arrival of three strangers on the fringes of the village. They settle on the commons, put up a ramshackle shack, and lay a fire in the hearth to announce their presence and willingness to abide by the laws of the community. The population of the village is declining, and even the lean harvest requires all hands to help bring it in. Still, they do not welcome the newcomers. With the dwindling population and barely enough resources to feed the villagers through the winter, they do not want to share what little they have with vagrants. They also are wary of disease being introduced into the population. Meanwhile, they spot a man they nickname Mr. Quill, who lurks on the periphery sketching and surveying. This makes the villagers nervous, and they wonder if their master has fallen on hard times and if he will start selling the land out from under them.

The same night, the master’s stables and other outbuildings are set aflame by accident when—according to Walt—three of the village men who are high on magic mushrooms try to smoke out Master Kent’s doves to keep them from thieving grain. Master Kent wants justice for such a costly loss of doves, hay, and buildings; the villagers decide to scapegoat the newcomers, even though it is obvious they know who really did it. In the course of firefighting, Walt’s hand is painfully burned, so he does not speak up about what he thinks he knows—he just goes home to treat his injuries, leaving the newcomers to whatever fate befalls them. They shave the heads of all three, and the men are sentenced to a week in the pillory.



At the harvest feast, Master Kent reveals that he thinks the future of the village is in wool, which is less susceptible to bad weather than crops; although, in order to raise enough sheep, the common land will have to be cleared and fenced. This makes Walt uneasy; the villagers rely on the harvest leftovers to feed themselves through the winter. In any case, the villagers dance and revel the night away. In the morning, Walt is assigned to be Mr. Quill’s assistant, since his burnt hand keeps him from working in the fields. He becomes a local guide for Mr. Quill, showing him the territory and pointing out plants.

Master Kent’s cousin by marriage comes to the village because he has a blood claim to the land, whereas Master Kent owns it through marriage. Since his wife died, his hold has become tenuous. The cousin, Edmund Jordan, usurps Kent, placing himself as the lord and master of the village. He is the one who wants the sheep as part of his plans for “Progress and Prosperity.” Mr. Quill reveals that he is working for Edmund Jordan, not Master Kent. He is not particularly enthused about the plan to raise sheep. On their way back from the fields, they come upon the pillory. One of the pilloried newcomers, the old man, had died and been half-gnawed by someone’s pig before anyone found him.

Shortly after Master Jordan arrives, Master Kent’s beloved mare Willowjack is found killed. Walt immediately thinks of Jordan’s groom, but his other suspects are the village blacksmith, the same trio that set the fire, and the village butcher. To find the culprit, they tell the villagers to stay put and the cottages are searched for bloody clothes. They find the newcomer woman’s shawl covered in blood, but both Walt and Kent lie, saying that the shawl was Kent’s late wife’s property stolen by a passing ruffian. Jordan is unsatisfied; in his self-appointed role as magistrate, he wants to find the surviving newcomers and question them.



Mr. Quill shows Walt the maps. He is working on two: the first is the village as it currently is, the second reflects Jordan’s vision of farming three thousand sheep. The maps are soulless to Walt—for all the sketching and rambling through the countryside, the map pales in comparison to the real thing; it is only a cheap, lying facsimile to the real deal. Seeing his home and whole world laid bare leaves Walt shaken and desolate.

Meanwhile, Jordan has gathered two women and a little girl and interrogated them as witches, including the four-year-old festival Gleaning Queen, Lizzie. They also find that the young man still in the pillory is the husband of the bewitching woman no one can find. One of Jordan’s men quips that the little girl will be burnt as a witch, and the girl’s parents and other villagers beat him. Terrified, they leave town to avoid retribution. The next day, Jordan is calm. All he wanted was to scare and rile the villagers into leaving so he could take their land, and his plan works. Jordan has also decided to make Walt his man, though Walt’s loyalty is with Kent. The two masters, their men, and the captive women leave the manor.

Walt’s defiance takes the form of setting the pilloried man free, tilling a field, then getting drunk and eating fairy cap mushrooms. He finds the Beldams (the nickname for the newcomers) looting and burning down the village, and he finds Mr. Quill’s murdered body in the manor attic. The Beldams leave, and Walt sets fire to the manor. Havoc wreaked to his satisfaction, he takes his pre-packed bags and leaves the boundaries of the village, the last person to flee.



This novel, which Crace claims is his last, garnered positive critical acclaim. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Walter Scott Prize, and the Goldsmith’s Prize.