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Review
`There is much to admire and enjoy in A KIND MAN' --TLS, Sarah Curtis, January 7, 2011
`Alongside her skilled economy she crafts beautifully succinct imagery which, given the subject, can even be read as biblical' --Financial Times, Maria Crawford, January 7, 2011
`Through a heartfelt work of fiction, Hill explores themes such as kindness, greed and envy, while balancing the plot's miraculous element with a strong, even harsh, sense of reality' --Time Out, Danielle Goldstein, January 7, 2011
`powerfully understated prose...A Kind Man is a paragon of parable-telling, delightful in every regard' --The Herald, January 11, 2011
`Defiant in its simplicity, it has an incantatory quality...such is the warmth and humanity of her writing that the reader continually dares to expect the impossible, with the result that, despite its shortness, this is a novel of huge emotional impact and moments of immense poignancy' --The Independent, January 11, 2011
`this smoothly self-contained tale is both simple, subtle and strong. I'm still thinking about it' --Daily Mail, January 11, 2011
`Sometimes a piece of writing is so pure, so true, it is almost painful to read...[a] haunting, exquisitely told tale.' --Seven Magazine(The Sunday Telegraph), January 18, 2011
`...moving study of faith and humanity.'
--The Sunday Business Post
` Hill impresses without seeking to astonish, and so is one of those rare writers whose work is brilliant in the single, secondary sense- not glittering, but distinguished- her prose as pleasing and surprising, say, as a perfectly round stone, or home-cooked haute cuisine.' --The Guardian
`It has a power beyond its pages; a haunting resonance between each stark sentence that stayed with me long after I'd turned the final page.'
`The delicate balance between kindness and bitterness, hope and despair, a dying man and a dying town, are almost unbearably poignant. This is a short book that will live long
in the memory.'
--The Independent
`Hill's writing here is superb, conveying emotion and pain in the sparest of prose'...'a comforting keenly moving tale of endurance and the eternal springs of friendship and love' --Literary Review
`concisely captures primal emotions and offers astonishing transformations'... `movingly perceptive'
--Sunday Times,
`Of all the contemporary novelists who are compared to Dickens, Susan Hill probably has the best claim' --Prospect
'beautiful novel' --Sainsbury's Magazine
`I read this short novel in one sitting; it is an enthralling story, touching and ultimately positive' --Bookshelf
`Susan Hill is the mistress of subtle atmosphere' --Country Life
`Alongside her skilled economy she crafts beautifully succinct imagery which, given the subject, can even be read as biblical' --Financial Times, Maria Crawford, January 7, 2011
`Through a heartfelt work of fiction, Hill explores themes such as kindness, greed and envy, while balancing the plot's miraculous element with a strong, even harsh, sense of reality' --Time Out, Danielle Goldstein, January 7, 2011
`powerfully understated prose...A Kind Man is a paragon of parable-telling, delightful in every regard' --The Herald, January 11, 2011
`Defiant in its simplicity, it has an incantatory quality...such is the warmth and humanity of her writing that the reader continually dares to expect the impossible, with the result that, despite its shortness, this is a novel of huge emotional impact and moments of immense poignancy' --The Independent, January 11, 2011
`this smoothly self-contained tale is both simple, subtle and strong. I'm still thinking about it' --Daily Mail, January 11, 2011
`Sometimes a piece of writing is so pure, so true, it is almost painful to read...[a] haunting, exquisitely told tale.' --Seven Magazine(The Sunday Telegraph), January 18, 2011
`...moving study of faith and humanity.'
--The Sunday Business Post
` Hill impresses without seeking to astonish, and so is one of those rare writers whose work is brilliant in the single, secondary sense- not glittering, but distinguished- her prose as pleasing and surprising, say, as a perfectly round stone, or home-cooked haute cuisine.' --The Guardian
`It has a power beyond its pages; a haunting resonance between each stark sentence that stayed with me long after I'd turned the final page.'
`The delicate balance between kindness and bitterness, hope and despair, a dying man and a dying town, are almost unbearably poignant. This is a short book that will live long
in the memory.'
--The Independent
`Hill's writing here is superb, conveying emotion and pain in the sparest of prose'...'a comforting keenly moving tale of endurance and the eternal springs of friendship and love' --Literary Review
`concisely captures primal emotions and offers astonishing transformations'... `movingly perceptive'
--Sunday Times,
`Of all the contemporary novelists who are compared to Dickens, Susan Hill probably has the best claim' --Prospect
'beautiful novel' --Sainsbury's Magazine
`I read this short novel in one sitting; it is an enthralling story, touching and ultimately positive' --Bookshelf
`Susan Hill is the mistress of subtle atmosphere' --Country Life
Book Description
Susan Hill proves once again that she is one of our very best storytellers in this transfixing parable of greed and goodness and an extraordinary miracle.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This latest book by Susan Hill is, in my humble opinion, one of her very best, a miniature masterpiece. This is the story of a working-class couple, Tommy and Eve Carr, who live a quiet, modest life somewhere in the north of the England in the early 1930s, a couple who have to face the tragic death of their young daughter and the incomprehensible consequences of Tommy's own devastating illness. Written in a beautifully economic style, their poignant story veers from joy, to grief, to dread and finally acceptance. It's a tale that can be seen as a parable about how we should use our gifts, or perhaps as a metaphor for the random nature of fortune and misfortune. However you choose to interpret it, it's a hauntingly affecting tale, one of those that lingers on in the mind long after you've finished reading it.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I read my first Susan Hill book back in the dim, misty past of my college days. Nestled in my English Lit reading list amongst Thomas Hardy, T.S.Eliot, G.B.Shaw, Grahame Greene etc was I'm the King of the Castle by Susan Hill. To an 18 year old who was more used to reading wall to wall epic fantasy and sci-fi I found Hill's writing the most accessible, though I admit it wasn't until a much later reread that I really appreciated the sheer depth and truth of her writing. Although A kind Man doesn't hit the heights of her earlier works it is as ever a very emotive read. This short book initially seems to be a somewhat prosaic story, set in a northern mill town during a hard depression, about the life paths of two sisters and the petty resentments that follow. One sister, Mirriam, marries a selfish and inconsiderate man, the other, Eve, marries the titular kind man, Tommy Carr, as selfless and giving a man as it 's possible to know. Mirriam can't stop having children, all boys, and Eve struggles to conceive at all. Eventually she has a single girl. From early on in the narrative, Hill generates a sense of anxiety, which is very subtly felt at first, but as the story advances and tragedy strikes, this anxiety slowly increases. What happens next is totally unexpected and far from prosaic. It's Hill's skill in engendering empathy from the reader for her characters that draws the reader in, making you worry for them and pre-empt their decisions. Essentially the book is a parable about love and kindness in a world that seems to be forgetting their value in a self made hell of drudgery and selfishness.
51 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
How wonderful to actually be Susan Hill. In the school of modern women writers she is the Headmistress. For her now, nothing is impossible. `A Kind Man' is a sibling to The Beacon and The Small Hand themselves older sisters to The Man in the Picture: A Ghost Story. There is something unique about books of this size, something highly satisfactory.
In this tidy volume, the work of an afternoon's reading, Susan Hill has morphed into Thomas Hardy. A dark parable indeed with a measured pace, spotted with pathos, maintaining a low level of simmering, deep-seated grief, soul wrenching dread, and moral backbone. Short, sharp, simple sentences ; such as "Nothing would be said", of which Susan Hill is the sovereign, carry their dark foreboding, infused with longing yet submissive acceptance of a hard life to be endured.
Set, I think, just after the Great War and before the National Health Service, in an industrial town and at its rural edge; `A Kind Man' we come to understand, is a straight-forward chap called Tommy Carr, who works in one of the factories maintaining the equipment. His wife Eve makes their home in a small terrace of modest cottages in far sight of the smoking chimneys but out of their shadow. She keeps hens and rabbits for the pot while maintaining the garden and good relationships with her neighbours. Tommy and Eve silently mourn their lost daughter in their own separate ways alongside each others sadness. Eve's older sister Miriam has produced a family of many sons at a speedy rate, achieved at a high cost to her health and happiness, compared to the more stately pace of life for kindly Tommy and Eve. The contrasts between the lives of the sisters is clearly drawn.
An astonishing event, Biblical in fact, occurs in the middle of the fable and it is this that draws up the skeins of temptation that cannot eventually be denied; weaving together circumstances and kindly meant actions that inevitably exact a terrible toll.
Like a cross-stitch sampler hanging on a cottage wall, we learn that `The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' Or maybe `No good deed goes unpunished'. Or my title. The ending is calm and sensible although at no time does the atmosphere truly lighten; being almost Victorian in its heavy mood.
I loved it and feel sad at having been party to this little world for such a brief interlude. Another gem.
In this tidy volume, the work of an afternoon's reading, Susan Hill has morphed into Thomas Hardy. A dark parable indeed with a measured pace, spotted with pathos, maintaining a low level of simmering, deep-seated grief, soul wrenching dread, and moral backbone. Short, sharp, simple sentences ; such as "Nothing would be said", of which Susan Hill is the sovereign, carry their dark foreboding, infused with longing yet submissive acceptance of a hard life to be endured.
Set, I think, just after the Great War and before the National Health Service, in an industrial town and at its rural edge; `A Kind Man' we come to understand, is a straight-forward chap called Tommy Carr, who works in one of the factories maintaining the equipment. His wife Eve makes their home in a small terrace of modest cottages in far sight of the smoking chimneys but out of their shadow. She keeps hens and rabbits for the pot while maintaining the garden and good relationships with her neighbours. Tommy and Eve silently mourn their lost daughter in their own separate ways alongside each others sadness. Eve's older sister Miriam has produced a family of many sons at a speedy rate, achieved at a high cost to her health and happiness, compared to the more stately pace of life for kindly Tommy and Eve. The contrasts between the lives of the sisters is clearly drawn.
An astonishing event, Biblical in fact, occurs in the middle of the fable and it is this that draws up the skeins of temptation that cannot eventually be denied; weaving together circumstances and kindly meant actions that inevitably exact a terrible toll.
Like a cross-stitch sampler hanging on a cottage wall, we learn that `The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' Or maybe `No good deed goes unpunished'. Or my title. The ending is calm and sensible although at no time does the atmosphere truly lighten; being almost Victorian in its heavy mood.
I loved it and feel sad at having been party to this little world for such a brief interlude. Another gem.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Another wonderful book by Susan Hill
Susan Hill's work is always evocative and unusual, and A Kind Man does not disappoint. Fascinating, unsettling and beautifully written. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Published 1 month ago by Leila
Brilliant return to form
I was so pleased with this! After ploughing through one of her police sagas and finding it woefull I really thought I'd never buy another Susan Hill book, but I made an exception... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Archy
A moving and beautifully composed story
This is a short novella about love, loss and bereavement, subjects that Susan Hill always treats with realism and sympathy but without sentimentality. Read more
Published 7 months ago by piscator
A Kind Man Susan Hill
Susan Hill writes with all her usual expertise, beautiful language and interesting content.A Kind Man explores the difficulties faced during times of economic hardship, family... Read more
Published 14 months ago by D. I. Turner
Excellent novella
This is yet another beautifully written sparse book by the author. Her ability to draw you into the world she creates is exceptional. Read more
Published 15 months ago by GMA
a gentle cautionary tale
The kind Man is another little novella by Susan Hill. The writing is beautifully crafted. It was tempting to read this little book quickly but i read it slowly savouring the fine... Read more
Published 15 months ago by sarah J
short but super read
this is a lovely read the first book I have read of susan hill I will read more in future. The title is reflected right through the book even through difficult times kindnss... Read more
Published 15 months ago by liliglad
Dissapointing
I was expecting alot more. I found myself wanting to get this book finished so I could start a new one. An expensive book too for a novella!
Published 15 months ago
Small but Perfectly Formed
Yes, I am most definitely a Susan Hill fan and I apologise in advance if this ends up being a gushing review verging on the let's skip beatification and just make her a saint of... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Lovely Treez
Kindness is its own reward
A KIND MAN by Susan Hill tells the tale of Tommy Carr and his wife, Eve. The problem with this short novel is that, to say any more than that may risk ruining it for others. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Brida
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