Book review: All Among the Barley, Melissa Harrison

All Among the Barley isn’t quite the story you expect. Melissa Harrison’s book is indeed a coming-of-age story set in Suffolk in the 1930s. But it also slowly reveals itself as having a political edge, showing how certain ideologies started to infiltrate rural communities in the run-up to World War II.

The main protagonist of All Among the Barley is 14-year-old Edie Mather. She’s an intelligent young woman who enjoys reading but is kept busy with her relatively simple life at Wych Farm, Edie’s home in a small Suffolk village.

That rural life is undoubtedly one of the book’s best aspects, captured as it is through lush, lyrical descriptions of the natural world. The sense of place is vividly drawn, though I found the details of the harvest rhythms and life on the farm a bit too lengthy. All Among the Barley is certainly a slow burn, and at times I wondered if anything substantive would actually happen.

But into Edie’s life comes Constance FitzAllen. She’s a sophisticated woman from London who claims to be in the area to learn about and record rural traditions. Ones that she fears are becoming lost. She seems genuine enough in her love of the English countryside. But over time, her xenophobic, antisemitic comments indicate she may have a hidden agenda. One that young, innocent Edie is unaware of.

Alongside this, Edie is blossoming and unsure how to respond to the attentions of an older boy, Alf Rose. When that comes to a climax, it makes for uncomfortable reading. Though whether it’s this or a combination of factors that lead Edie down a confused path in her mind is unclear.

Fleshing out All Among the Barley are a cast of characters, including Edie’s parents, each with their own troubles. They manage the farm with the help of John, who survived the battlefields of WWI, and Doble, their old farm hand. Edie’s brother, 17-year-old Frank, also works on the farm and is courting a local girl, with every expectation that she will be his future wife. Older sister Mary is already married and has a baby, so Edie’s future seems set to follow in a similar direction to her siblings.

But life doesn’t always go in the direction you expect. And the ending of All Among the Barley is certainly not what I expected.

Along with many of the books I read, I borrowed All Among the Barley from my local library. But it’s also available from bookshops, including the charity Oxfam, which is Europe’s biggest retailer of second-hand books. For more book reviews, visit the Books section of my blog.