A Kind Man by Susan Hill

A Kind Man is a story about a couple who meet when young. The time and setting is fairly indeterminate but can be placed somewhere in the fifties, maybe earlier and in an declining industrial community. That's hardly important. Hill writes with a fluid spare prose that has an unblemished melancholy as pure as driven snow. Almost from the first page I knew this book was going to make me cry - like only one other author has ever done (Marilynne Robinson) and I loved it for that even whilst bunching up my face and frowning hard to stop the tears rolling down my cheeks on the train.

Hill captures the desperately fragile and invaluable sense of vulnerability being alive and facing uncertainty and loss leaves us with and she moves through the story she has to tell in as short a time as others may set about introducing their characters. This doesn't leave you feeling distant, on the contrary, Susan Hill's writing is so effective that my heart was broken before we'd even reached the main conceit of the book.

Do I have any criticisms? No. I have been out and bought another of her books today. If you read only one book this year make it this one.