The Giant on the Skyline

by Clover Stroud

'Clover Stroud is a fearless explorer of the human heart, and a writer of incomparable grace and passion.' Elizabeth Gilbert

'Clover's writing is sensationally beautiful.' Laura Cumming

'Stroud's writing is knife-sharp, beautiful and profound.' Madeline Miller

'I love Clover Stroud's writing. It feels like she's mining for treasure, drilling down with lyrical prose, getting to the thing that makes us human.' Christie Watson
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What is it that makes a home? What is a home without the roots that tie you to a place? What is a home when a family is split?

Clover's eldest children are leaving home for university. Her husband Pete's work is in America. The only way for Clover and the younger children to live with him is to uproot, leave their rural life near the ancient Ridgeway in Oxfordshire and move to Washington DC. Forced to leave the home she loves and consider these questions, Clover sets out to explore the place where she lives, walk the Ridgway, understand a little of the history of her landscape and work out why it is that it is so hard for her to go. In doing so she paints a beautifully layered portrait of family, community and of belonging in a landscape that has drawn people to it for generation after generation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Nature

329 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 9, 2024

Reviews

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm unapologetically a huge fan of Stroud's writing and was delighted to get this as a proof. For me, The Giant on the Skyline is her best writing yet. She is very much a writer who wears her heart on her sleeve and whatever she writes, it feels like she is reaching to express her authentic self through her words. Here I think she succeeds far more powerfully than in her previous books. A memoir of the time she spent deciding whether or not to move to Washington to join Pete, her husband, who works out there, this is a deeply felt exploration of what home is and whether you can uproot yourself geographically whilst still maintaining a sense of self and home. This is a love letter both to her husband and to the land she has made her home in. It's a psychogeographic exploration in the most heartfelt, personal way rather than as an academic exercise, which some psychogeographic works can easily become. It's a beautiful piece of work, drenched in colour, saturated in emotion and full of heart and soul.

[Milly Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published 9 May 2024. I've never read any Clover Stroud before - and even though I don't usually rea memoirs this piqued my interest. Set in Wiltshire with the Ridgeway, the White Horse and Avebury as characters, this is the author's exploration of the meaning of home. Her husband, Pete, spends a lot of time working in America and he wants Clover to move out their with the children - a request that sends her into almost freefall. In this book she describes beautifully the landscape, the seasons. She gives a real sense of community, what it is like to live in a place where everyone knows you, where everyone looks out for you. She writes movingly of her connection to the landscape where her parents and sister are buried and you can real feel for her dilemma, how can she leave this landscape that means so much to her. Her two eldest children, Jimmy and Dolly are getting ready to start university so to uproot the family will mean leaving two of them in the UK, of separating them. Her writing is gorgeous and this is a deep dive into what home means. I also loved the intimate moments that she shares with the reader - those family moments - the car ride with Jimmy to university and her feelings as she settled him in brought back memories of when we took our son to his university many years ago. I loved meeting the people around her and walking with her on her many excursions to the Ridgeway. As for the giant man - well, I'll leave it to you. A super read full of family, love and landscape. Rounded up to 5*

[Laura Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clover Stroud’s writing reminds me of Katherine Mays - very descriptive and beautifully poetic, but I have to be in the right mood for it. I think for me this worked with Stroud’s book on motherhood, as I really connected to the subject matter and hadn’t read anything that captured the conflict of feelings that being a Mum brings. However I think with this one (and The Red of My Blood) because I’m not as connected to the subject, it felt like a bit of a chore to get through. I can appreciate it’s a beautiful piece of writing, just not for me.

[Lucy Skeet · Rating 5 out of 5]

she has done it for the fourth time in a row, folks.

clover stroud has been one of my favourite writers ever since i read the wild other a couple of years ago. the way she writes about big feelings and emotions is unlike anyone else and i just adore everything she publishes. as someone who also made a move last year, i related to parts of this very deeply and she did make me cry again.

roll on book number 5!

[Abigail Yardimci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, where to start with this breath of fresh air of a book . . . The Giant on the Skyline is more than a story of somebody struggling to move home. It’s about femininity and love; motherhood and identity; timelines and myths; wondering and wanderings; dreams and probabilities; heritage and memory; tenacity and fear. Clover’s courageous prose drew me in with tender arms and held me tight until the final page. My own lived experience of falling in love with someone from a different culture and land, all the mutual compromises we’ve made that rose out of impossibility and commitment, I felt, tangibly glowed from a story that wasn’t even mine. I feel a little bit more in love with life after reading this book.

[Elainedav · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never read anything by this author before, but I liked the description of the book - an exploration of the meaning of home, which suggested to also be an exploration of the landscape around the ridgeway in Wiltshire. I also liked the fact that Clover Stroud is a journalist and that a previous book had been nominated for the Wainwright prize. I thought this indicated the writing would be good. I was not wrong.

This book beautifully explores the place where the author lives. Not just the house and it's immediate setting, but the wider landscape around there, including the white chalk horse on the hillside. Clover is grappling with the decision to uproot her family to move to America, where her husband is working. Initially it is unthinkable - not just because of uprooting the three small children but also because of leaving the older children behind as they start university.

There is so much in this book that resonated with me. The connections to people who have passed away but remain in the landscape around us. Relationships with other people in the community, not least close friends and the connections we have to our family pets. It was so emotional at times.

I loved every part of this book - especially towards the end, the connection with Hari and the short pilgrimage with the druid around the hillside connecting with the chalk stream springs.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a good memoir and or nature writing.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Sarah Farmer-Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clover is the Actual Queen of Memoir Writing - and that is a FACT! She is a writer of enormously awesome talent and, not only that, she is an absolutely beautiful human being. So if you pick this book up to read prepare to be entranced by the most beautiful writing ever written and to be dazzled by her amazing clarity of expression, her thoughtful and profound reflections and her skill at being able to put her feelings into words with such incredible beauty. The Giant on the Skyline is a breathtakingly honest memoir that explores love, loss, change, and the deep connection we have to place. It’s a literary exploration of what ties us to home or place and questions whether home can carried within us rather than being purely a geographical location. Clover superbly captures the emotional weight of leaving behind a beloved home, weaving together memories of family, motherhood, and identity with the ever-present pull of the English landscape which she describes so vividly.
What makes this book so powerful is Clover’s ability to blend the personal with the universal—her reflections on belonging, nostalgia, and the passage of time are astonishingly acute, candid and open, and as such they resonate deeply. She writes with rawness and a very special beauty, making you really feel every ache of her approaching departure and yet every shimmer of hope for what lies ahead. My writing here really isn’t doing this book enough justice so, if you love a memoir, I urge you to pick it up and read it yourself - it’s nothing short of extraordinary and gets five very easy stars from me!

[Mary Pilkington · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book really wasn’t for me but having said that I’m glad I read it. Clover is living with her 5 children in the rural countryside of England. Within view of the famous chalk White Horse on the hillside. She has a remarkable affinity with nature and her local community and her love of this shines through in the book. However her husband is working in the US and it applying pressure to make the family move to Washington DC so they can be together. Although how that will make that much of a difference to them I don’t know as he seemed to be working all over the US.
I found both Clover and Pete very annoying people. He reckoned he couldn’t afford to keep a family of 5 children afloat by working in the UK…….really!! Plain selfish I thought, his career was far more important to him than his family or at least this is how it comes across. And Clover never seemed to be able to spell out how she felt, what sort of a relationship was that? In the end it all worked out for the man and I hope it works out for them.
Rounded up to 3⭐️

Thanks to NetGalley.co.uk and the publishers for this ARC

[Wendy Mcauliffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this! I found so much comfort and solace in Clover Stroud's writing, yet it was also far more pacey than I was expecting.

I have followed Clover on Instagram for some time, so I had a sense of what to expect. She has an incredible way with words, and in this new memoir, she explores with candor the meaning of home and what it truly means to belong. I adored her descriptions of the rural landscape of Oxfordshire, and I found myself looking up images of the White Horse and the Ridgeway, wanting to immerse myself fully in her story.

I particularly enjoyed some of the beautiful vignettes Clover tells, such as Jimmy leaving for university, the 'giant' she meets on the bridge, the researcher who camps on her land, and the Indian man's shop in Faringdon. I feel these will stay with me for a long time.

Thank you to Clover and Penguin Random House for the early proof. It was so unexpected, and really made my day (and days, reading it)! I very much hope there will be a next instalment, on the move to DC!

[Daisy Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Giant on the Skyline was such a meditative and moving book to read. Clover feels a spiritual and deep connection to her home, and the land that surrounds her. While life with her children can be chaotic, she finds solace in the green fields and hills that are on her doorstep. But there is often a part of her that's missing. Pete, her husband, is away for work so much that something has to give. He wants them to move to the U.S. and build a life there. Clover is at first angry and deeply saddened at the thought of letting go of the life she has built in their community. She worries that her children will lose a part of their childhood. As she visits the places that have provided her with solace, she contemplates the meaning of home. The bonds that tether us to a place and the people we associate with home.

Reading Clover's memoir of this pivotal moment was an intricate insight into her past and present, and a thoughtful journey into the future. Funny at times, moving throughout - this book is something rare and beautifully crafted.

[Bookwormbadger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read and loved all of Clover's previous books, and have also enjoyed following her on Instagram for a few years. Nobody else writes about the way life feels in quite the same way as Clover; her style is raw, honest, open and heartfelt. I was therefore very excited to read her new book and it didn't disappoint. In this book, Clover is reflecting on her life in rural Wiltshire living near the Ridgeway and White Horse Hill; although I am not familiar with the area, I could picture it through her beautiful writing and her lyrical descriptions of the various places that she has grown to love over the years. Her passion for these landscapes and the people who have shaped them, shines through on every page. I think this was my favourite of all her books so far. Highly recommended.
My grateful thanks to NetGalley, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, Doubleday and Clover Stroud for my advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Christy fictional_traits · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Leaving this place which is our home feels like a strange kind of destruction to me'.

When Clover Stroud is faced with packing up her house and family, in order to join her husband in America, she is torn. Confused as to why she feels so aggrieved, Stroud explores what it means to inhabit a place, and how her relationship with home had become utterly entangled with her sense of being, 'I am certain the Ridgeway holds vibrations of my soul that I've not experienced in other places, and so it knows things about me, and is sympathetic even, to who I am'. Through probing how this sense of place resonates with her sense of self: mother, wife, bereaved, she is finally able to enunciate her reticence and move forward.

'The Giant on the Skyline' is labeled as a memoir but its prosaic, lyrical style, underscored with profound introspection and search for understanding, presents as something bigger. In some ways, for me, it reads almost like a fable. Her ability to weave together historical facts, personal memories, vignettes of daily mundanity, and mystical realism, results in a heartfelt story that can resonate at countless points for many.

'Look up, and the night sky is unchanged...the stars and the night you see now are the same as they have ever been...and so the ancient lives on with us in the present'.

[Debbie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first book by Clover and not my usual go to genre, but something about the description of the book…What is it that makes a home? What is a home without the roots that tie you to a place? What is a home when a fall is split? … resonated with me. I’ve lived apart from my husband with my children in the past, I’ve taken my family abroad to be together as a family, I’ve moved from the place I grew up and yet my roots still remain strong and deep inside me. So I very much felt for Clover as she struggled to find her peace with the decision to move to America. I loved her descriptions of the countryside and the feelings it evokes for different people. I very much enjoyed her journey and the images she creates. All in all a beautiful read.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Random House UK for an arc in exchange for a review.

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, I wanted to like it all the way through, even at the end. And at times I almost thought that I did like it, but mostly I found it frustrating. What is Pete’s job? Why must Clover give up her life for his work? What do the children think? Why is Clover’s desire to live in a specific landscape most important? There was a lot of consideration of “home” but it wasn’t until the final line of the epilogue that there was any real acknowledgement of the children in all of the heart wringing about what to do. Essentially, it was a very long wrangle of whether to move to America when it’s not even a spoiler to say she does, because if you follow her online you’ll know that she did!

[Steve Cripwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clover's eldest children are leaving home for university. Her husband Pete's work is in America.
The only way for Clover and the younger children to live with him is to uproot, leave their rural life near the ancient Ridgeway in Oxfordshire and move to Washington DC.

This book is full of precise and exacting descriptions of life. This is a wonderfully written piece of craft that produces vivid picture of everyday living. I did feel, however, that it got a bit bogged down in minutiae of life which slowed the pace of the story.

[Rachel Quinlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a world where many of us no longer live where we grew up, or indeed moved around as a child, where is home?
As Clover strives to find roots for her children in Wiltshire, near where she grew up, her husband is working in America. But where are her roots, where are her children’s roots, where is her home and where is home for her children?
The descriptive writing is very evocative and so striking, I was transported to areas I’ve visited on holiday.
Easy to read and engaging, if a little thought provoking - I was left wondering where is home for me?

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book of two halves for me. Clover Stroud is a very talented writer and I really enjoyed learning about the Ridgeway, Wantage and the surrounding area as I'm not familiar with it. I could have read a whole book concentrating just on this. The underlying story about the pros and cons of moving to the USA was less appealing to me. Whilst it was a very important decision for the family I have to admit that the amount of introspection lost my interest after a while and I ended up skipping bits towards the end.

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about home and what it means. Home is where the heart is.
That’s the saying right?
The past is nostalgic.
Places change.
People move.
Memories stay.
Conflicting feelings about moving on and then not being able too. I can recognise my grief is the driving force in this right now.
This is my first @clover.stroud book and won’t be my last.
Made me question my belonging and that is it more than literally your front door key.
All the greens

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clover Stroud has written a thoughtful moving book about her decision to move from the UK to live with her husband Pete who due to his career was living in Washington DC.She shares with us her thoughts about leaving the home she loved uprooting her children and heading to a new country.Balancing her need to live with Pete her husband and to give up the home the life she loves.Lyrically written open intimate a book that gives you much to think about.

[Felicity · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult read for me, as I'm going through something very similar currently. But I think Strouds working through her thoughts is helping me move mine along.
The writing is beautiful, and very evocative of the place, which I have been to once. Definitely on my revisit list. I would probably give it 5 stars if I read again at a slightly less stressful point in life.

[Sara Green · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just way too location-centred for me. Beautifully observed and captured, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care enough about the Oxfordshire countryside, and I barely got a third of the way in before I found myself skimming and skipping paragraphs, then pages, then whole chapters in search of the core storyline. In the end, there was just not enough of it to keep me engaged.

[Catherine Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I follow this author on Instagram so I had a real sense of the landscape and her home that she agonises over leaving. I love her style of writing, these are the type of books that you inhale as you read them.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in the concept of this book, ie an exploration of “home” for ourselves and our children, but it didn’t quite deliver for me. The forays into the quasi-mystical weren’t really to my taste, at least not for this genre. I do appreciate Stroud’s candour though.

[Caroline Mather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just a beautiful book 👌❤️🙏

[Nicola Wyllie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️
I enjoyed this memoir. It is beautifully written and really gets you thinking about what home means to you.

[Seana Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely nature writing about the English countryside. A meditation on home and family and the generations. I very much enjoyed as these topics are very close to my heart.

[Bernadette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly sublime. I love this book. Clover brings us alongside her on her life journey.

[Marese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartfelt, honest, visceral writing. I love all Cover Strouds books.

[Lisa San Martín · Rating 1 out of 5]

An awful lot of pretentious words to say, ‘I don’t like change’.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous book, made me cry in parts. Such an in depth look at the power of ‘home’ and what makes it.