Novelist Maggie O’Farrell always wanted to write the story of her great-great-grandfather, who lived in Ireland and worked for the Ordinance Survey, Britain’s mapping service, in the 1850s. And now she has. Her vivid new novel, Land, features a surveyor and his family who are engulfed in the chaos of the era. These were perilous times. The Great Hunger, which lasted from 1845 to 1852, had left Ireland destitute. More than 1 million Irish people died, and 1 to 2 million emigrated to Canada and the United States. Many Irish, seeing the gold-trimmed vestments and other signs of wealth in the Church, angrily abandoned their Catholic faith, returning to Celtic beliefs.Tomas, the hero of Land, is one of those who return to the old ways. It happens when he is surveying with his 10-year-old son, Liam. A member of the Ordinance Survey, Tomas (possibly a spin-off of O’Farrell’s ancestor) is tasked with surveying the Irish countryside. The British government wants to learn how many Irish citizens are still alive, what their financial circumstances are, and how much land and livestock they own, ostensibly to tax the already impoverished country.
An Irish-British novelist, O’Farrell grew up in Protestant Northern Ireland. She is the author of several award-winning novels, including the bestselling Hamnet, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was made into an Academy Award-winning film. Land, too, is scheduled to become a film and will be produced by Liza Marshall of Hamnet fame.
