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Drought
A brilliant novel about memory, love, and the clash between the old world and the new, set in 1950s Spain
“He turned his back on the old man to mourn in silence this unnecessary death and his part in it; but the sight of the coffin brought anger instead ...”
In 1957, a burned-out British journalist leaves London to recuperate in the idyllic Andalusian village of Benalamar, a place little changed since the tumult of Spain’s civil war. But when a foreign businessman arrives with plans to develop the area, the community is thrown into turmoil.
During a time of drought, the promise of a reservoir is meant to allay the fears of the local populace, but the developer has little idea what he is playing with. A local farmer commits suicide, and the investigation that follows leads back into recent history, lost love and civil war – all a far cry from the tranquil retreat that once promised respite from a world of lurid headlines and backroom shenanigans.
Drought is a keenly felt novel about memory, love and the clash between the old world and the new.
“He turned his back on the old man to mourn in silence this unnecessary death and his part in it; but the sight of the coffin brought anger instead ...”
In 1957, a burned-out British journalist leaves London to recuperate in the idyllic Andalusian village of Benalamar, a place little changed since the tumult of Spain’s civil war. But when a foreign businessman arrives with plans to develop the area, the community is thrown into turmoil.
During a time of drought, the promise of a reservoir is meant to allay the fears of the local populace, but the developer has little idea what he is playing with. A local farmer commits suicide, and the investigation that follows leads back into recent history, lost love and civil war – all a far cry from the tranquil retreat that once promised respite from a world of lurid headlines and backroom shenanigans.
Drought is a keenly felt novel about memory, love and the clash between the old world and the new.
256 pages, Paperback
First published July 14, 2015
2 people are currently reading
288 people want to read
About the author
Ronald Fraser
19 books4 followersRonald Angus Fraser (9 December 1930 – 10 February 2012) was a British historian noted for his oral histories and in particular for Blood Of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War, his oral history of the Spanish Civil War.
Born in Hamburg to an upper-middle class British father and wealthy American mother, Fraser was educated at boarding school in England and the USA and undertook further studies in Switzerland and France. He chronicled his upbringing in his oral history In Search of a Past (1984), in which interviews with the servants at his family's Berkshire country house served as a counterpoint to his own memories. Fraser spent five years as a correspondent with Reuters in Brussels, The Hague and London before moving to Spain in 1957 to become a full-time writer.
Fraser was one of the pioneers of oral history in the 1960s and '70s, most notably with In Hiding: The Life of Manuel Cortes: The Life of Manuel Cortes (1972) and Blood Of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War (1979). His book Napoleon's Cursed War: Popular Resistance in the Spanish Peninsular War, 1808-1814 (2008) applied his experience of oral history to traditional archival sources.
Fraser's friendship with André Gorz led to his involvement with the New Left Review from the early 1960s. He was a lifelong socialist and at his death a senior member of the New Left Trust. He was a founder of New Left Books, the parent company of publisher Verso Books.
Born in Hamburg to an upper-middle class British father and wealthy American mother, Fraser was educated at boarding school in England and the USA and undertook further studies in Switzerland and France. He chronicled his upbringing in his oral history In Search of a Past (1984), in which interviews with the servants at his family's Berkshire country house served as a counterpoint to his own memories. Fraser spent five years as a correspondent with Reuters in Brussels, The Hague and London before moving to Spain in 1957 to become a full-time writer.
Fraser was one of the pioneers of oral history in the 1960s and '70s, most notably with In Hiding: The Life of Manuel Cortes: The Life of Manuel Cortes (1972) and Blood Of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War (1979). His book Napoleon's Cursed War: Popular Resistance in the Spanish Peninsular War, 1808-1814 (2008) applied his experience of oral history to traditional archival sources.
Fraser's friendship with André Gorz led to his involvement with the New Left Review from the early 1960s. He was a lifelong socialist and at his death a senior member of the New Left Trust. He was a founder of New Left Books, the parent company of publisher Verso Books.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 5, 2016
I randomly stumbled onto this "why-done-it" on Netgalley.com and read it as an uncorrected proof. Slightly rough polish aside (a minor missing word or typo or two), it's a unique gem. The world that the author presents is fully formed and his writing is richly detailed with sights and sounds and smells.
"The air was heat-stilled, the hills shimmered under an implacable sun, a mineral silence fell upon the earth. Up above the three pines on the hill, the ascending white lines of the village were drained of their colour."
The outsider narrator (a British journalist on "mental health" leave in a Spanish hill town) immediately drew me in, but what grabbed and held me most strongly was his Existentialist POV. A socialist at heart, the narrator is deeply conflicted by the right wing politics of the newspaper that employs him. As the novel begins, he is deep in the throes of a moral crisis and this crisis informs and guides most of the novel. Existentialism abounds. Honestly, at a couple of points, I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. But, that sense of disorientation and confusion forced me to think. It also had me googling Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and considering adding Being and Nothingness to my reading list.
The author also piqued my interest in the Spanish Civil War. Ronald Fraser was a highly regarded historian, well-known for his oral histories, and most famous for his book on the Spanish Civil War: Blood Of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War. There is great historical detail in this novel, but it supports the story, never overwhelms it. History bored me in school, but it comes vividly to life here and I appreciated everything I learned.
Not an easy read, but a memorable and richly rewarding one.
Perfect closing scenes.
"The air was heat-stilled, the hills shimmered under an implacable sun, a mineral silence fell upon the earth. Up above the three pines on the hill, the ascending white lines of the village were drained of their colour."
The outsider narrator (a British journalist on "mental health" leave in a Spanish hill town) immediately drew me in, but what grabbed and held me most strongly was his Existentialist POV. A socialist at heart, the narrator is deeply conflicted by the right wing politics of the newspaper that employs him. As the novel begins, he is deep in the throes of a moral crisis and this crisis informs and guides most of the novel. Existentialism abounds. Honestly, at a couple of points, I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. But, that sense of disorientation and confusion forced me to think. It also had me googling Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and considering adding Being and Nothingness to my reading list.
The author also piqued my interest in the Spanish Civil War. Ronald Fraser was a highly regarded historian, well-known for his oral histories, and most famous for his book on the Spanish Civil War: Blood Of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War. There is great historical detail in this novel, but it supports the story, never overwhelms it. History bored me in school, but it comes vividly to life here and I appreciated everything I learned.
Not an easy read, but a memorable and richly rewarding one.
Perfect closing scenes.
June 4, 2021
I FINALLY finished this darn book. I’m sorry to say that I did not enjoy this book at all. There are a few different reasons.
1. I did not like the author’s writing style. It felt very forced and like the author was trying too hard to be “profound.” There were soooo many unnecessary filler words and there were many times where I had to reread something to understand what the author was trying to say.
2. I did not like a single character in this book (except maybe Juana.) Many of these characters felt very flat and I had no emotional connection to any of them. This is especially true for Miguel because his perspective low key made me uncomfortable and I just couldn’t connect with that. Here’s an example from page 215. “...caressing his possession of her...” like what??? His possession?? Also page 228. “...observance of certain rights, among them a man’s dominion over a woman.” Booooo like what is that?? Phrases like this were sprinkled throughout the book and I’m not sure if this is just the setting of the story and the characters but I didn’t like it and it made me 🤮
3. There were moments in the book where there was blaming going on for Miguel’s suicide. There was a lot of finger pointing and I don’t know how I feel about that. Suicide is a complex topic and I didn’t like how these characters responded to it. Especially when it came to Juana. Juana didn’t want to be with Miguel romantically anymore (which is 100% an ok thing) but all these characters INCLUDING JOHN were trying to blame Miguel’s death on her because she wouldn’t “submit” to the lifestyle that Miguel wanted????? Like if anything Juana is the only sane character in this book like ugh.
4. The book was just plain boring. The pacing was weird and I hated how throughout most of the book we slowly figure out Miguel’s history and then at the end of the book we see it happen all over again but this time from Miguel’s perspective. I WAS BORED I DONT WANT TO READ THE SAME THING TWICE UNLESS ITS NECESSARY OR A NEW INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE.
5. Lastly, the author did more telling rather than showing. There were so many moments in the book where I as the reader was being TOLD what was happening or being TOLD what a character was thinking. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with fictional writing. I want to see characters interact with one another and the world around them. I don’t want to be babied through a book and have everything explained to me. Give your readers some credit!
Ok I think those are my main issues. Did I like anything about the book? No, not really. It’s possible that I just missed the potential of this book, but I’m not so sure.
I won’t be recommending this book to others and I don’t think I’ll read anything else from this author anytime soon.
1. I did not like the author’s writing style. It felt very forced and like the author was trying too hard to be “profound.” There were soooo many unnecessary filler words and there were many times where I had to reread something to understand what the author was trying to say.
2. I did not like a single character in this book (except maybe Juana.) Many of these characters felt very flat and I had no emotional connection to any of them. This is especially true for Miguel because his perspective low key made me uncomfortable and I just couldn’t connect with that. Here’s an example from page 215. “...caressing his possession of her...” like what??? His possession?? Also page 228. “...observance of certain rights, among them a man’s dominion over a woman.” Booooo like what is that?? Phrases like this were sprinkled throughout the book and I’m not sure if this is just the setting of the story and the characters but I didn’t like it and it made me 🤮
3. There were moments in the book where there was blaming going on for Miguel’s suicide. There was a lot of finger pointing and I don’t know how I feel about that. Suicide is a complex topic and I didn’t like how these characters responded to it. Especially when it came to Juana. Juana didn’t want to be with Miguel romantically anymore (which is 100% an ok thing) but all these characters INCLUDING JOHN were trying to blame Miguel’s death on her because she wouldn’t “submit” to the lifestyle that Miguel wanted????? Like if anything Juana is the only sane character in this book like ugh.
4. The book was just plain boring. The pacing was weird and I hated how throughout most of the book we slowly figure out Miguel’s history and then at the end of the book we see it happen all over again but this time from Miguel’s perspective. I WAS BORED I DONT WANT TO READ THE SAME THING TWICE UNLESS ITS NECESSARY OR A NEW INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE.
5. Lastly, the author did more telling rather than showing. There were so many moments in the book where I as the reader was being TOLD what was happening or being TOLD what a character was thinking. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with fictional writing. I want to see characters interact with one another and the world around them. I don’t want to be babied through a book and have everything explained to me. Give your readers some credit!
Ok I think those are my main issues. Did I like anything about the book? No, not really. It’s possible that I just missed the potential of this book, but I’m not so sure.
I won’t be recommending this book to others and I don’t think I’ll read anything else from this author anytime soon.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 21, 2017
Drought:A Novel by Ronald Fraser is a well-written story about the clash between the old world and he beginning of a new world. During a period of drought, the anticipation of a reservoir being built by an outsider is meant to dispel the fears of the local farmers. However, the developer has little understanding of the people and the mindset of the town. A local farmer, Miguel, kills himself and the investigation into why he committed suicide leads into the history of the area, civil war and love. Does Miguel take his own life because of his landlady's refusal to allow the water from the dam to cross her land and thus help the farmers? Does he take his life because of the actions of his fiancé? Does he take his life because he is unable to get a job working on the dam and thus financially saving himself? These questions are addressed by a writer who comes to the town to recuperate from an illness and who is intrigued by Miguel's story and decides to write a book about him. His inquiries into Miguel's life and his findings are reported in an interesting, detailed style and rely on the reader to draw his/her own conclusions about the characters. Drought is the story of ordinary people during trying times, such as the Spanish Civil War and a period of devastating drought, who face life head on and honestly in a believable and realistic manner.
January 10, 2016
A great historical novel. Moving right down to your soul. The cover photo says it all. This book is so well written that you are brought right into the experiences - they feel real and you are touched by them. You feel inspiration through tragedy which is a rare skill practiced by this author. I love that I was dropped into the lives of ordinary folks following them as they adjust to their new circumstances. For some reason - I really enjoyed the Bob character. A good read.
September 17, 2015
Lost interest about halfway through....excuse the pun, but it was a very dry read that meandered a bit too much.
April 30, 2016
A Little Dry
The late Ronald Fraser (1930–2012) was a pioneer British oral historian. His Blood of Spain, an oral history of the Spanish Civil War (1979), presumably provides much of the background to this novel, written I think in the 1980s, but published only now. Although set in 1956, almost two decades after the Civil War ended, its consequences still matter in the small Andalusian hill town of Benalamar, where a few landowners still rule the lives of the subsistence sharecroppers and rural laborers. Fraser makes no secret of his sympathies with the ordinary people and his opposition to exploitation of any kind. But then he was a lifelong socialist—and, not coincidentally, a founder of New Left Books, whose subsidiary, Verso Books, are now bringing out this novel, presumably as a posthumous tribute.
John Black, a leader writer at a London paper, suffers some kind of nervous breakdown after the Suez Crisis, doubtless caused by having to write editorials contrary to his own conscience. John arrives in Benalamar to find the village in the grip of a drought. A fellow Englishman, a real estate developer called Bob, tries to address the situation by building a dam and drilling a new borehole. But María Burgos, the local landowner, raises objections to the watercourse crossing her land, the drought continues, and one of the sharecroppers, a farmer called Miguel, kills himself in despair.
It is easy to see the effect of the author's background. Rather than telling the story chronologically, Fraser posits that a literary editor is publishing John's posthumous papers (a sad irony here) many years later, and adding his own connecting narrative. Those papers begin on the day after Miguel's suicide. So the story has been converted into a history, and we see John using the methods of the oral historian to uncover it. Feeling guilty at having delayed when Miguel asked him for help, John determines to find the cause of his suicide and assign the appropriate blame, which he is pretty sure will rest with the landowner. So he meets with a number of people who had grown up with Miguel, worked with him, and loved him. The situation he uncovers is much more complex than he had imagined, casting light not only on the social tensions endemic in the community, but also the changes being brought to the area by foreigners like himself and Bob.
It is all interesting, but in a rather dry way that prefers investigation to action, and ideas to emotion. Fortunately, the story does not always remain in the past. The investigation into this one man's death turns out to have dangerous present-day consequences, and the action-packed climax is indeed powerful. But it comes too late to save a book that reads a little too much like a political tract, rather than a true novel of character and feeling.
The late Ronald Fraser (1930–2012) was a pioneer British oral historian. His Blood of Spain, an oral history of the Spanish Civil War (1979), presumably provides much of the background to this novel, written I think in the 1980s, but published only now. Although set in 1956, almost two decades after the Civil War ended, its consequences still matter in the small Andalusian hill town of Benalamar, where a few landowners still rule the lives of the subsistence sharecroppers and rural laborers. Fraser makes no secret of his sympathies with the ordinary people and his opposition to exploitation of any kind. But then he was a lifelong socialist—and, not coincidentally, a founder of New Left Books, whose subsidiary, Verso Books, are now bringing out this novel, presumably as a posthumous tribute.
John Black, a leader writer at a London paper, suffers some kind of nervous breakdown after the Suez Crisis, doubtless caused by having to write editorials contrary to his own conscience. John arrives in Benalamar to find the village in the grip of a drought. A fellow Englishman, a real estate developer called Bob, tries to address the situation by building a dam and drilling a new borehole. But María Burgos, the local landowner, raises objections to the watercourse crossing her land, the drought continues, and one of the sharecroppers, a farmer called Miguel, kills himself in despair.
It is easy to see the effect of the author's background. Rather than telling the story chronologically, Fraser posits that a literary editor is publishing John's posthumous papers (a sad irony here) many years later, and adding his own connecting narrative. Those papers begin on the day after Miguel's suicide. So the story has been converted into a history, and we see John using the methods of the oral historian to uncover it. Feeling guilty at having delayed when Miguel asked him for help, John determines to find the cause of his suicide and assign the appropriate blame, which he is pretty sure will rest with the landowner. So he meets with a number of people who had grown up with Miguel, worked with him, and loved him. The situation he uncovers is much more complex than he had imagined, casting light not only on the social tensions endemic in the community, but also the changes being brought to the area by foreigners like himself and Bob.
It is all interesting, but in a rather dry way that prefers investigation to action, and ideas to emotion. Fortunately, the story does not always remain in the past. The investigation into this one man's death turns out to have dangerous present-day consequences, and the action-packed climax is indeed powerful. But it comes too late to save a book that reads a little too much like a political tract, rather than a true novel of character and feeling.
February 19, 2017
A dark-hued story set in Spain in the late 1950s, at least at its main point, in a parched, poverty-stricken hamlet in Andalusia. A British ex-patriate (Bob) wants to build a dam in this dry location and develop the village; Miguel, a young local farmer, inexplicably commits suicide; John, another ex-pat, a burnt-out journalist, sits down to write Miguel's story. The book's narrative is mostly of that period, though much of it is flashbacks, told through John, of Miguel's life and of the village's hardships during the Spanish civil war and after, including several generations of Miguel's family. It's a back-and-forth story, and a downbeat one, but an interesting way to tell of a small place in stark times.
July 22, 2015
A burned-out British journalist escapes to a small Andalusian village to recuperate, but finds that events spiral out of control when a British businessman arrives in the village with plans for its development. Soon the old world and its ways clash with the new, and disaster follows. There’s some good writing here, especially in the descriptions of the Spanish scenery, the heat and the details of village life. But characterisation leans towards the stereotypical, particularly with the Spanish inhabitants, and the two British characters never quite come alive. It’s not a bad book by any means but overall I found it unconvincing and it failed to engage me fully. Nevertheless as a picture of Spain in the 1950s I found it evocative and atmospheric and for that alone would recommend it.
May 31, 2015
Set in Andalusia, this novel tracks the fate of a small town influenced by bigger problems. When a developer sees the tourist potential, he upsets the status quo, causing one sharecropper to take his own life in despair. Beautifully written and realized, it opens with an impressionistic reverie by one of the characters looking at the town from a 30 year prospective of the main events. The history of Spain, encapsulated.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews