Unsettled Ground

Another engrossing book.

[Fuller’s] memorable characters will work their way into your head and heart.

Fuller explores the painful realities of poverty and social isolation with immense sensitivity in this multi-layered and emotionally astute novel.

Fuller writers agonizingly well about the poverty, and the cruelty of predatory villagers who smell fresh blood. The scenario is thick with jeopardy — just when you think things can’t get worse, they do — yet, blessedly, the climax pulls back from the abyss without losing a jot of drama. Superb.

Fuller’s prose is often graceful, lyrical ... Fuller has a remarkable way of juxtaposing beauty with ugliness, resilience with despair, and her portrayal of these troubled but appealing siblings is as sensitive as it is powerful. Unsettled Ground shows us that at any age, the unexpected can trip us up and force us to rewrite not only our present but our past.

A revelatory experience … [Claire Fuller is] a novelist doing her strongest work yet … This is a powerful, beautiful novel that shows us our land as it really is: a place of shelter and cruelty, innocence and experience.

Fuller has a keen eye for how things fall apart. Ruinous living is a theme in all her novels … But ruination is also the scene of patching up, as Fuller’s characters deploy their skills of brushing, mending, sewing, and painting. The same goes for parental manipulation. In Unsettled Ground, it is only when the big lie is revealed that renovation can commence.

Unsettled Ground shares with Fuller’s previous works themes of closely guarded family secrets and homes built upon shaky foundations … Fuller displays a tenderness for her characters — with all the mistakes they make or lies they tell — as well as highlighting the precariousness of even the most fervently believed truths.

A kind of photonegative English pastoral … Unsettled Ground examines where the fault lines lie — how a parent’s errors can reverberate through a life.

Impressive … With sensitivity and intelligence, Fuller unpicks the relentless complexity of the modern world, in which mobile phones are connected to bank accounts are connected to central heating systems, and the hopeless poignancy of our longing for simplicity […] It is exactly this note of astringency, combined with Fuller’s skill at evoking sensations from the animal pleasures of sex to the misery of sleeping rough that gives the narrative its fierce energy.

Sometimes it’s the slowest growers that have the strongest roots. A former sculptor who began writing at the age of forty, Fuller’s been quietly cultivating a devoted following throughout the publication of three psychologically sharp novels. Her fourth novel is … a dark tale, no doubt — but if you’re a reader who lives for contemplative storytelling and perfectly wrought characters, this author is for you.

[A] stunning story … Touching on themes of love, friendship, and neighbours, [Unsettled Ground is] a powerful exploration of loneliness and isolation.

[Fuller’s] absorbing novel unsettles us with its fine evocation of life’s fragility while grounding us in the healing powers of love, loyalty, and nature’s bounty.

Claire Fuller has long been a writer expert on both character and relationships. The Unsettled in the title is well chosen — there’s an unsettling edge to the world Fuller creates, but it is one that slowly, skilfully draws the reader in, weaving a captivating tale of love, resilience, and survival.

This fourth novel from the award-winning Fuller begins with a heartrending crisis for adult twins Julius and Jeanie Seeder … A gripping, unsettling narrative that ultimately offers a journey of resilience and hope, with unforgettable results.

Fuller paints a devastatingly haunting picture of abject poverty … This tale offers a remarkable peek into how the embrace of family can completely smother other aspects of life. Nevertheless, human ingenuity persists … It’s reassuring to think that reinvention is possible after all.

Fuller is a master of building suspense … At once unsettling and hopeful, her book checks all the boxes of an engrossing mystery.

In Unsettled Ground, Claire Fuller uncovers marginalized lives we don’t often see on the page in the rich and sensory prose that has gained her a strong following.

Fuller paints a devastatingly haunting picture of abject poverty … This tale offers a remarkable peek into how the embrace of family can completely smother other aspects of life. Nevertheless, human ingenuity persists … It’s reassuring to think that reinvention is possible after all.

Fuller is a master of building suspense … At once unsettling and hopeful, her book checks all the boxes of an engrossing mystery.

In Unsettled Ground, Claire Fuller uncovers marginalized lives we don’t often see on the page in the rich and sensory prose that has gained her a strong following.

Claire Fuller’s Unsettled Ground is so sharply, so utterly brilliant that I found myself holding my breath while reading it, dazzled by Fuller’s mastery and precision. Not since Flaubert’s A Simple Heart have I encountered a narrative that shows, with such clear and patient fury, how breathtaking vulnerability can come from poverty, pride, and helpless family love.

Unsettled Ground is a gorgeously written celebration of the natural world as well as a moving portrait of a family struggling against time. Through buried secrets and private longings, the Seeders emerge as multi-layered characters living at the fringes of society. This book is ultimately about redemption — about the unexpected importance of neighbours, lovers, and friends, and the ways in which we can re-envision our lives for the better, even after the unimaginable has occurred.

Unsettled Ground is another sly psychological treat from Claire Fuller, who just keeps on getting better with each book.

Fuller’s prose is darkly elegant, her eye for character astute and humane, and her sense of place vividly atmospheric — here is a writer of great skill, sensitivity, and subtlety.

Claire Fuller strikes the perfect balance between beauty and melancholy in this relevant and powerful exploration of isolation and life on the fringes of society.