This, My Second Life
Selected by Harriet
Staff Pick!
Harriet Says…
I am giving everyone this book, it moved me so much. Beautifully written, in simple prose, it tells the story of a 20 year old boy who goes to live with his uncle, a small holding farmer in Cornwall, following the boy’s cardiac arrest.
His recovery and the slow pace of life on the farm are in sync, and the relationship between the uncle and nephew is poignant and reassuring.
Patrick Charnley, the son of poet and novelist Helen Dunmore, wrote this book after having suffered a cardiac arrest himself.
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After a near-death experience and life-changing injury, twenty-year-old Jago Trevarno goes to stay with his uncle on his small coastal farm a few miles from St Ives in Cornwall. Their existence is a simple one, their lives measured by the span of the days, the rhythms of the seasons and the animals they care for. But lurking in the shadows is local villain, Bill Sligo, who has designs on Jacob’s farm and in particular on a field near the cliffs housing a derelict mineshaft. Wanting to repay his uncle’s kindness, Jago determines to find out what Bill Sligo is up to. Jago is still vulnerable though, and in pursuing Sligo he delves into a murky world that he is ill-equipped to deal with. How far will Bill Sligo go to get what he wants? Jago doesn’t know it yet, but once again he is in grave danger.