06 Nov 2020
The forthcoming novel, Snow Country, tells the story of Lena, a girl born with nothing but her own strength of character to an alcoholic mother in a small town in southern Austria in 1906 and Anton, the restless son of a bourgeois family who sets out to make his fortune in pre-First World War Vienna.
Their lives become fatally entwined at the Schloss Seeblick, setting of one of Faulks’s most loved and admired novel, Human Traces (2005). Although we glimpse one or two characters from the past, this is a new world. The main action takes place in 1933, with Europe precariously placed between two wars.
The novel looks at yearning and desire, at memories true and false, and at how the most private moments of our lives are shaped by the invisible forces of history. Thematically complex, it is held together by a narrative that drives to an unforgettable ending.
Snow Country will be published in hardback by Hutchinson in Autumn 2021 and as a Vintage paperback in 2022.