This book is intriguing as it starts off as one thing and finishes as quite another. At first I thought it was a cosy portrait of 1930s British rural life, perhaps with a bit of a coming-of-age yarn thrown in. However, once you are lulled by the chirping hedgerows and the thrum of the thresher it all starts to go a bit bananas (in a good way.) The way nationalism and facism and patriotism can all become tangled together in times of economic strife is unfolded masterfully, and in a timely manner for these Brexit riven times. Concepts like a veneration for "The Old Ways" in the face of progress and modernisation, and a fear of community change caused by 'outsiders with different ways' (Jews) are germinated under the heat of economic downturn and frustrated masculinity (sound familiar?!) Thrown in is a little witchcraft, lesbianism, rape and madness...because, why not?