Product Description

Charles Wenmouth is a young blacksmith and Methodist lay preacher in the furthest, widest reaches of south-west England. It is 1870 and preachers such as Wenmouth devote their Sundays to walking great distances across country to preach morning and evening to ever dwindling congregations. Wenmouth himself burns with faith, but it is a faith that is balanced by the pleasures he takes in nature and the world around him. His only distraction is a local blind girl, Harriet French, whom he is drawn to by the faith she maintains despite her debilitating condition. Over the course of one long Sabbath, after preaching morning through evening, Wenmouth returns to his village and devastating news. Will he finally begin to face the doubt that has threatened to consume him for many years past?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1936041 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Spiritual rumination and magnificent descriptions of nature drive Hobbs's inventively written debut, a character study that credibly evokes the colloquial rhythms of its time. Over the course of the year 1870, 27-year-old Charles Wenmoth, an apprentice blacksmith and Methodist lay preacher, thoughtfully records his lonely existence in Cornwall, England. Under the "drab unblemished skin of cloud," the Industrial Revolution has caused local farmers to abandon their land, their faith and their families in search of more lucrative work in the mines or abroad. Charles mourns the loss of these worshippers but finds strength in his faith and its manifestations in the earthly world. He also finds an Edenic calm in his frequent visits to blind, dying Harriet French. Their conversations renew Charles's belief in himself as a good man, even as he later muses, "sometimes it seems like I do not love the Sabbath as I should." Fans of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead will respond to this novel, which realistically portrays Charles's struggle to feel worthy, while illuminating the larger desire to derive meaning from human existence. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Charles Wenworth, 27, apprentice blacksmith and Methodist lay minister, begins this journal so that he doesn't waste the small details of his life. In 42 sections, some lengthy, a few only one page, Wenworth writes about the hardships and dangers in nineteenth--century village living. It is Wenworth's voice in this journal that makes the novel exceptional. In spare prose that brilliantly conveys the run-on patterns of natural speech, Hobbs convincingly depicts the character and foibles of people, the exigencies of a duty-driven life, and the glorious beauty of the natural world in Cornwall. Not much external happens in the book, but that's not really important. As in the best fiction, this book examines what it means to be human--to wrestle with grief and loneliness, to face the harshness of death and loss, to struggle from doubt to faith--through the life of a humble man. With appeal to serious fiction readers as well as fans of historical fiction, Hobbs's first novel holds promise of great things to come--it's a real find. Ellen Loughran
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Peter Hobbs grew up in Cornwall and Yorkshire, and lives in London. The Short Day Dying was shortlisted for the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award. His collection of stories - I Could Ride All Day in My Cool Blue Train - is published by Faber in 2006. His stories have been published in Zembla and New Writing 13.