Richard Hillyer, Country Boy (1966)
With their small size and brightly colored cloth covers, Slightly Foxed Editions resemble jewels in book form, a literary treasure chest. And here is treasure indeed. Each book contains a memoir of a singular individual, revealing many facets of human nature in all its richness and complexity. Most are reprints, revived from the archives of the past for a new generation of discerning readers. While some are attached to well-known names like Rosemary Sutcliff and Graham Greene, many are from authors who have lapsed into obscurity.
In the latter category is Country Boy, a moving yet supremely unsentimental account of a boy’s life within an English farm laborer’s family just over a century ago. Deep feeling and clear-eyed observation merge to create a memorable, distinct picture of that vanished world and of the brave, struggling souls who inhabited it. The country life is neither idealized as a pastoral Arcadia, as we tend to see it today, nor demonized as a hotbed of vice and squalor, as certain novelists would have it. Both the beauties and the drawbacks of traditional rural life are described in calm, measured prose that brings a place and people vividly before us, with few judgments but many telling details.
Most memorable to me were the passages in which the author describes his longing for something different, a way into the wider world revealed to him by the scraps of literature he was able to pick up within his outwardly impoverished existence. How he treasured and sought and ultimately used these to grow into something more than the fate he was born to forms a narrative as gripping as that as any novel. For those of us who value reading above nearly all other pleasures and benefits of life, he articulates experiences and feelings that we can share no matter what the circumstances of our birth or upbringing.
The coloured words flashed out and entranced my fancy. They drew pictures in my mind. Words became magical, incantations, abracadabra which called up spirits. My dormant imagination opened like a flower in the sun. Life at home was drab and colorless, with nothing to light up the dull monotony of the unchanging days. Here in books was a limitless world that I could have for my own. It was like coming up from the bottom of the ocean and seeing the universe for the first time.
Country Boy is a real gem, one I’m sure I’ll return to often for its wisdom, insight, and compassion. I do wish that the story could have been continued; this was the author’s only memoir, and it breaks off at a very exciting point. But he didn’t set out to chronicle his whole life, only to capture a certain bygone time, and that he does to perfection.
[book-info]
The Emerald City Book Review Archive 
Lovely review. This book sounds gorgeous the kind of memoir I love. I only have 1 Slightly Foxed edition. This is going on my wishlist.
LikeLike
It’s such a pleasure to hold a beautifully made book, and the contents are just as good.
LikeLike
These sound lovely. And, even if they’re not, they would look beautiful on the shelf. 🙂
LikeLike
They do make a very attractive collection.
LikeLike
Sounds lovely. Every Slightly Foxed edition I’ve read has been wonderful and this is one I’ve been planning to add to my collection.
LikeLike
It’s such a marvelous window on that place and time.
LikeLike
Hillyer’s not an author I’d heard of before so thanks, Lory. Your description reminds me of the autobiographical elements of Laurie Lee’s books (another author I’ve yet to read, though I’ve seen dramatisations of his work) and, especially, Alison Uttley’s A Country Child (reviewed at http://wp.me/s2oNj1-child); both were authors who lovingly conjured up their childhoods in an English countryside now mostly gone forever.
LikeLike
I haven’t yet read either Laurie Lee’s books or A Country Child, though I have the latter on my shelf waiting for me to get to it. From Lark Rise to Candleford is another that springs to mind.
LikeLike
Foolish me: of course you’ve already read and commented on my review of A Country Child …
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
What a beautiful review! I’m not familiar with this press, but this book, at least, sounds like one I would enjoy.
LikeLike
They have many tempting titles, including some well known favorites (84 Charing Cross Road is their latest) along with the lesser known gems.
LikeLike
Beautiful review of what sounds like a delightful book. It reminds me of my reading Hamlin Garland’s writing about growing up in the Midwestern United States, or the poignancy of Richard Llewellen’s lovely How Green Was My Valley. Any press that publishes books like this one and 84 Charing Cross Road (another favorite) has to be worth exploring.
LikeLike
I don’t know Hamlin Garland, must look him up. I do think you would enjoy the Slightly Foxed series.
LikeLike
The ending of memoirs seems like it must always be a tricky thing! I’m sure it’s hard to wrap up a story when every day of your life extends the material you could write about.
LikeLike
Yes, there’s so much selection and shaping involved. Life doesn’t always give us a clear beginning, middle and end to our stories.
LikeLike