Known for her raw and personal accounts of her life, Clover’s fourth book paints an intimate and poignant portrait of the emotional complexities she encounters as she considers moving from Baulking (a small village between Wantage and Faringdon) to the east coast of America where her husband has been working for some time. Although she would take her school-age children, she struggles to imagine leaving behind her eldest two, who are now young adults and to adjusting to life in a city. Cutting herself adrift from her house – from which she can see age-old chalk figure carved into the Ridgeway – and the other tangible reminders of memories she has forged here over three decades of adult life seems an impossible task.
The book is a kaleidoscope of life and landscape; from ancient people who lived here to the vagabonds in black Wantage when the town’s early-nineteenth-century lawlessness was legendary. And there are its treasures; the Alfred jewel, an Anglo-Saxon goldsmith’s masterpiece of gold, quartz and enamel (a highlight of any visit to The Ashmolean); the treasures of the natural world, and the rich gems she finds in the open-cast mine of her children's childhood. Written in a way which is vividly evocative, Clover shares the essence of her everyday experiences, interlacing her raw and deep musings with lyrical prose that’s both local and universal.
Laying family life bare, from the village shop to standing outside a rural hall to collect children from after-school clubs, Clover invites you deep into her thoughts which range from druids to Ridgeway raves: between damp grass and open horizons, she muses upon the mycelium of human life across the land, over the sea, and through the ages. You’ll join her in the depths of exasperating motherhood, with Lego underfoot, and in the magical landscape in which she has been settled for most of her adult life. There are horses – with Clover there are always horses - and fields, fear and faith. Above all, her love for her family. And with an underlying sense of resilience, resentment and hope too, this is athoughtful exploration of the word home which will resonate with anyone who has been separated from a significant other for long periods or had to move away from a place they’ve held dear.
It isn’t a spoiler to say what choice Clover will make, because the cover of the book describes Clover as ‘currently living in Washington DC’: the book, however, is a gentle unravelling of her journey to make this call. It’s an emotive experiential read, a slow-motion contemplation and the dawning of a decision that will have major repercussions on her own life and that of her children. Whilst weaving modern-day characters with ancient myths, Clover sets the ephemeral against the permanent and melds them together with dazzling descriptions that are crisp as fresh raindrops and as alive, floral and tangled as Oxfordshire hedgerows: mired in the mud of rural West Oxfordshire, The Giant on The Skyline tells a timeless tale of holding tight and letting go with the rich story flavour of a traditional home-stitched American quilt. Within its covers it holds not only the seasons and the passing years, but, for Clover, the meaning of life in all its minutiae.
At times Clover’s days seem slightly stoned, as if you’re picking flowers in a meadow, country-cottage roses, perky buttercups, weedy cowslip, interspersed with real-life rain on a day when you didn't wear the rain jacket and have stepped in a steaming cow pat. She triggers every sense with a shimmering palette of lingering liquid language which evokes the rich lush colours of the landscape. Mostly her commentary is clarion-crisp, but occasionally it’s hazy and wistful, like a misty morning, or the glorious peaches and pinks of a mellow sunset, and if I was to be whimsical (which the author is on occasion) I could liken Clover to a twenty-first century working-mum Snow White of the Vale; wellies and bright knitted jumpers instead of a red bow and white pinnie, grouchy children at her feet instead of dwarves – although I can’t vouch for her singing voice and her house isn’t always swept. We are left with a question: while Pete, her long-distance husband is the Prince Charming of the piece, will the move be a poisoned apple? I’m already looking forward to the sequel.
In the meantime, you can follow Clover and her family, now in the USA, on Instagram @clover.stroud
The beautiful art for the cover of The Giant on the Skyline was created by Oxfordshire contemporary landscape painter Anna Dillon who opens her Aston Tirrold studio, in the lee of the Ridgeway, each year for Oxfordshire Artweeks.
Anna has also co-authored Downland (Two Rivers Press, May 2024), a book that celebrates the landscape of the North Wessex Downs through both visually, through her eyes, and through those of poet Jonathan Davidson. Taken together they form a kind of guidebook in paintings and poetry to the most popular stretch of The Ridgeway National Trail. The book also includes a map pinpointing the locations that inspired the paintings and the poems, perfect for a summer’s day out along this ancient path that runs like a spine through the lives of so many of us.
For more on Anna’s art visit annadillon.com
