Book review: The Western Wind, by Samantha Harvey

Writing in the New Yorker James Wood called Samantha Harvey’s last novel “beautiful…exhilarating … remarkable.” Since Wood is one of the best literary critics of our time, which means he is among the best readers of a novel, this judgement is persuasive, and indeed The Western Wind is remarkable and often beautiful, well enough written to be called exhilarating, even if the story itself is anything but that.