I didn’t intend to participate in Reading Wales Month ’25 this year, but when this novel fit into my A Century of Books project, I decided to fit it in for Reading Wales, too.
Such a lovely book this is, especially in the music of its language. It’s the story of the Morgans, a family of Welsh coal miners, told by one of its youngest members, Huw.
Huw is six when the novel begins. His family and those of the others in the valley are relatively prosperous, but there are signs that with the mine owners, profits are becoming more important than the lives of the men. Huw’s older brother Davy has been reading socialist literature and is talking about a union, but his father is against it.
It’s difficult to summarize this book because it’s full of family events, one of the first being Huw’s brother Ivor’s marriage to Bronwen. And there is the arrival of Mr. Gruffydd, the new preacher. But overarching everything for the men is the work, as pay gets lower and the valley begins experiencing periods of hunger and want.
I was as entranced by this novel as I ever was, the family so upright, god-fearing, and loyal, Huw’s experiences as he grows up. All the while, the fate of the valley is foreshadowed as Huw speaks from his 60s, returning just as his house is being destroyed by a mountain of slag.
It’s a real page-turner, not in terms of action, but for other reasons.
What? Me Read? 