Claire Fuller, author of the Costa Novel Award 2021 winner Unsettled Ground, explores folk music, memory, and the surreal everyday in this week’s episode of the How To Academy Podcast.
Described by The Times as a modern Daphne du Maurier, Claire Fuller’s writing is beautifully dark and vividly atmospheric. Her fourth novel, Unsettled Ground, follows the lives of two adult twins whose world is upturned after the death of their mother. After surviving for years off-grid and at the mercy of the seasons in their secluded cottage, the twins are tumbled into the present and forced to confront their change of circumstance and long-ignored family secrets.
Unsettled Ground is at once a haunting study of our society’s resistance to the unconventional and a sensitive portrait of familial love. She shares with us how writing the novel has changed her perception of modern life and asks why contemporary fiction has lost sight of the realities of rural poverty.
Praise for Unsettled Ground:
‘It’s merciless in its observation of casual cruelty and merciful in its observation of casual kindness and family love.’ ― Richard Curtis
‘So sharply, so utterly brilliant that I found myself holding my breath while reading it, dazzled by Fuller’s mastery and precision.’ ― Lauren Groff
