Earth to Earth: True Story of the Lives and Violent Deaths of a Devon Farming Family

by John Cornwell

1982

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

John Cornwell is a British journalist, author, and academic. Since 1990 he has directed the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he is also, since 2009, Founder and Director of the Rustat Conferences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters (University of Leicester) in 2011. He was nominated for the PEN/Ackerley Prize for best UK memoir 2007 (Seminary Boy) and shortlisted Specialist Journalist of the Year (science, medicine in Sunday Times Magazine), British Press Awards 2006. He won the Scientific and Medical Network Book of the Year Award for Hitler's Scientists, 2005; and received the Independent Television Authority - Tablet Award for contributions to religious journalism (1994). In 1982 he won the Gold Dagger Award Non-Fiction (1982) for Earth to Earth. He is best known for his investigative journalism; memoir; and his work in public understanding of science. In addition to his books on the relationship between science, ethics and the humanities, he has written widely on the Catholic Church and the modern papacy.

Reviews

[Sriya · Rating 4 out of 5]

randomly downloaded the audiobook after reading a good review of this somewhere and must say i really enjoyed it

[David Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Cornwell’s masterly,sympathetic and admirably thorough investigation of tragic Mid Devon farming siblings who, having no heirs, found they had nothing to live for and died at their own hands.
This is 1975, secluded West Chappel farm near Winkleigh is where generations of the Luxtons have been working the land since the 13th century, rising to great fortune in the mid 1800s before losing it to the terrible weather of the 1890s and the rise of cheap imported food. Ashamed of a recent ancestor who squandered a fortune through drinking and gambling they resigned themselves to subsistence, make a conscious decision to exist rather than live, turning inwards and shutting out the world, the two brothers and their sister live frugal isolated lives which entails a certain descent into madness.
Cornwell arrives in Winkleigh four days after the tragedy and sets about trying to discover just why two middle aged brothers and their sister should take their own lives so violently. He interviews plenty of locals who have their own opinions as to what was going on and a fascinating social history of an extended and doomed family over many generations is revealed.
It’s a sad tale and with a tragic end but at least there is no ridiculous wringing of hands with pious people promising that “Lessons will be learned”. Indeed the book is a suitable memorial to the family and there is even a short film (The Recluse - 1981 worth watching for £1) based upon them, filmed on the farm and available on the BFI website.
West Chappel, with its rich soil and the expert attention it received over hundreds of years is happily thriving again. Incidentally, I was 15 and living ten miles away in Crediton during these events and knew nothing about them until picking up a copy of this book and now I can’t stop thinking about how awful it was for the Luxton siblings, stuck in an intolerable situation probably reflected in many parts of the country even now. The suicide rate in the farming community has always been frighteningly high.

[Richard Newbold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dug this out for a reread, after lapping it up on its publication in the 1980s. Acclaimed then as a real page turner, chronicling the history and tragic end of the Luxtons, an ancient mid-Devon farming family, now I'm afraid the sensationalism and disputed facts of the story (many locals were incensed at the misrepresentation and conflation of the Luxtons' lives and those of their community), means I'm a lot more sympathetic to the humanity of the family members, and more sceptical at the journalistic workover the author skilfully lays before us. The agenda just seems to be too keen to portray the countryside and a farming community in changing times (the tragedy coinciding with UK joining the Common Market!) in a negative way. A fair amount of salacious stuff, parsimony, incest and inbreeding inferences, just seems less like hard-hitting reporting and more like plain blind prejudice these days.

Hopefully, we are now more attuned to the issues of depression and mental health issues, particularly in the elderly. That leads to a kinder interpretation of the "mystery", a family struggling to cope with illness within it (in this case the youngest sibling Alan). In particular, Frances, the elder sister and bedrock of the family home, seems a gentle shy soul, a sympathetic and heroic figure, with her spiritual piety and taste in later life for holidays abroad and family genealogy, she comes over as a consummate baby boomer if anything.

Still a good read, but taken with a pinch of salt seems the best advice.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across this by accident while searching for another book altogether and I'd never heard of the tragic case of the multiple deaths of the Luxton siblings on their mid-Devon farm in 1975. John Cornwell's forensic analysis of a family's fall from wealth and influence to grinding hard work, self-imposed isolation and madness is a compulsive, but very sad, read. Published nearly ten years after the tragic events it describes, Cornwell is able to take the long view, tracing both the complex family history and the repercussions for the local community. Having grown up in a farming community in a very rural part of England in the sixties and seventies, I knew families that were in many ways similar to the Luxtons, so this book resonates very strongly with me.

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very compulsive read: the story of 3 siblings found shot dead on their farm in September 1975 and their story prior to this.

A very tragic story, well written, though the author is rather slipshod over dates and the text doesn't always tally with the family tree reproduced in the book.

[Andrew Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this first back in the 1980s & re-read it recently.
As a former detective with Devon & Cornwall I recognised places and people involved.
Salutary lessons around family relationships, imposing views on others, missed opportunities.
A sad story.

[Callum Osment · Rating 5 out of 5]

found this incredibly fascinating as the case happened so close to my family's farm and was in fact the basis of one of my uncles plays! independently it is a thoughtful, gripping exploration of the fate of a family that is careful to avoid cliche trappings

[Peter Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy to read,very interesting true story about a family tragedy.Well worth a read although ultimately very sad.

[Mary Sanchez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tale of a family’s violent deaths on their ancestral primitive farm, was an interesting story of how the lack of perspective can lead to feelings of hopelessness, despair, and finally, deadly violence. The overall story was well written, but it could have left off the final chapter easily, without hurting the story.

[Wendy Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this yellowed page old paperback book at a used book event. Glad I did. I love true crime, mostly because I want to understand what led people to do the unspeakable. This story and its people will stay with me for a long time.

[Lucy T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The afterword is what made this five stars for me. Fascinating.

[Kexx · Rating 4 out of 5]

True crime, well written, in small segments, that meant can pick up / put down the book. Interesting post script.