The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons

This dual timeline novel moves back and forth from post WWII to the early 21st century, following the youngest of three brothers over the course of his life as he seeks love and music.

Harry Fox-Talbot, nicknamed Fox or Little Fox by nearly everyone, was too young to fight in WWII – he was at boarding school while his older brothers fought overseas; his father, the General, worked at Whitehall in London; and their home was requisitioned by the army. Now it’s 1946 and the three are finally returning to Dorset to reclaim Hartgrove Hall: Jack, the glamorous eldest, admired by all; George, the quiet middle brother; and Harry, the musical one, fascinated by folk songs. Jack coaxed their father to let them host a New Year’s Eve party (although leaves his brothers to do all the work) and Harry falls immediately for Edie Rose, a popular singer, who is Jack’s girlfriend. The house is in bad shape and anything of value was sold long ago, but the brothers are still astounded when the General announces they’re broke and the estate must go. They persuade him to give them a year to try to farm and make it solvent.

In the present, it is 2000 and Harry is a despondent widower, living in Hartgrove Hall, without much interest in his surroundings until he realizes his four-year-old grandson is a musical genius. This brings back his own musical journey and the bond he shared with lovely Edie Rose.

My Impression: I picked up this book in 2017 because it has several of the elements I like: dual timeline, English countryside setting, historic house, love triangle, siblings, and music. It is well-written and Harry’s lifelong quest to collect little-known songs with the goal of using them as inspiration for a symphony (or symphonies) is unusual and interesting:

The pub is half empty but the other drinkers are quite still, all listening even though they’re pretending not to. The rotund man beats a rhythm on the table. They take a breath and they sing. The walls of the pub fall away and we’re out on the bare back of the hill, the black trees behind us. I recognize this song and it’s an old one, older than Hartgrove Hall. Feet stamping on stone smash through the dark.

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘yes,’ when they’ve finished. I close my eyes, draining the last drop of sound . . . .  As I sway home, I warble to myself, only slightly off-key. I kick a tin can, which bounces into the hedgerow. The tunes circle in my mind, round and round in a noisy carousel. I’ll go home and I’ll write them down before I fall asleep in a pleasant cider haze. And then the certainty runs through me , cool as a winterbourne. I have the theme for the third movement of my symphony. These old folk tunes have taken root inside me, and caused something new to grow in my imagination. I hum the theme.

The problem – at least for me – is that Harry’s choices are so selfish that couldn’t like or respect him so that bothered me about the parts of the book set in the past and the grandson was so spoiled and obnoxious that I did not really enjoy the parts set closer to the present. As a result, while very readable, this book was somewhat of a disappointment (although still more congenial than the fiction Plume was publishing when I worked at Penguin).

Publication: Plume, paperback, 2015
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: England

Source: Personal copy

This is book 11 of my 20 Books of Summer

This is book 20 of the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

Off the Blog: Enjoying the Olympics Opening Ceremonies and thinking about my grandfather, who rowed for France in 1924, one hundred years ago!