Now We Shall Be Entirely Free

by Andrew Miller

By the Costa Award-winning author of PURE, a stunning historical novel with the grip of a thriller, written in richly evocative, luminous prose. One rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain's disastrous campaign against Napoleon's forces in Spain. Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind - he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folksongs. Lacroix sails north incognito, unaware that he has far worse to fear than being dragged back to the army: a vicious English corporal and a Spanish officer are on his trail, with orders to kill. The haven he finds on a remote island with a family of free-thinkers and the sister he falls for are not safe, at all.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Literary Fiction, British Literature, 19th Century, Scotland

422 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2018

About the author

Andrew Miller was born in Bristol in 1960. He has lived in Spain, Japan, Ireland and France, and currently lives in Somerset. His first novel, INGENIOUS PAIN, was published by Sceptre in 1997 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane Cavour prize in Italy. His second novel, CASANOVA, was published in 1998, followed by OXYGEN, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Booker Prize in 2001, and THE OPTIMISTS, published in 2005.

Reviews

[Beata · Rating 5 out of 5]

I purchased this novel just after it had been published and for reasons unknown it was left on the shelf for too long!
A beautiful and complicated story of guilt that seems impossible to shake off and results in physical pain and depression and which gradually vanishes when new opportunities appear and provide main character with strength to come to terms with the past and forgive himself. There is war, terrible acts of violence, a despicable character but you will find some peace and love which can change everything ....
I have been lucky to have read several brilliant novels recently, and this one will stay with me for a long time. If one of the qualities of a wonderful reading journey is thinking about the book while not being able to read it, well, this is the one for me.
Jim, thank you for your grand review which prompted me to open this book at once! Some of my GR Friends wrote terrific reviews, please check them out and read this book!

[Andy Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent piece of historical fiction. I'd have awarded five stars, but the big moments - ones the reader knows will come long before they arrive - failed completely, on arrival, to pack the anticipated punch.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Predator and prey. An atrocity takes place in a Spanish village when English soldiers, retreating in chaos from Napoleon's forces, run amok. To appease Spanish outrage an English corporal and a Spanish officer are commissioned to track down and kill the English captain in charge of the guilty soldiers. It's not an entirely plausible premise but it creates all the tension that fizzes through this gorgeously sensual novel.

Captain John Lacroix returns to England sick and tormented by a guilty secret. His desire now to hide from the world, he flees to the islands off the coast of Scotland.
The novel is told in alternate narratives. The more we see of John the more we like him; the more we see of Calley the more we dislike him. The tension builds as Calley and his Spanish companion close in on John.

This is a very beautifully written novel, so much so that I'm about to begin another of his books. And the plot is gripping. What's not to love? I'm shocked it's not better known.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written mixture of historical novel, adventure story and romance set during the Napoleonic wars, that may have been written with at least half an eye to a possible film adaptation.

The central character John Lacroix is a naive young gentleman cavalry officer who has just found his way home from the retreat that ended at Corunna. He is brought home barely alive, and scarred by what he has seen of his army's chaotic retreat and an atrocity he witnessed in a Spanish village. His regiment want him to return to action, and he conceives a trip to the Scottish islands in a bid to buy more time.

Meanwhile in Spain a military court has found him guilty, and a violent and unscrupulous corporal is sent to pursue him with a Spanish soldier for company.

The chaos of war and the period detail is quite impressive, and the whole thing is a very enjoyable read, but I am deducting a star because the plotting seems a little too neat and contrived.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5, rounded up

I had previously read three of Andrew Miller’s novels, enough to have made me a fan. Having finished Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, I am further impressed and really need to seek out the ones I haven’t read. Miller is a writer who is immensely talented and, I suspect, may not have the audience he rightfully deserves. I doubt he is known to most US readers as only a few of his novels have found US publishers. I also suspect, after reading Johanna Thomas-Corr's excellent review in The Guardian, that he doesn’t have a large following of UK readers either (or as large as he should), despite winning several awards, including Costa Book of the Year, as well as his having been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

I approached Now We Shall Be Entirely Free with high expectations and a certain bias. Even though I had yet to read the novel, I had high hopes of it making this year’s Booker longlist and I was quite ‘vocal’ in expressing both those hopes as well as my great anticipation of its publication. I was disappointed when the novel wasn’t longlisted, even more so now that I have read it. I'll quote from Johanna Thomas-Corr review in The Guardian: the fact it’s not made this year’s Man Booker longlist is already something of a travesty.

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free is a historical novel, a love story, an adventure yarn to rival the best, and a suspenseful thriller that kept me, many times, quickly turning the pages. There is even an element of mystery to be revealed. Miller has managed a great feat of story-telling. If that isn’t enough to recommend, it is presented in luminous prose. The novel isn’t perfect. But how many novels are? This reader, however, was more than satisfied with all the wonderful things that were offered. Can I tell you again (and possibly again) about the beauty of Miller’s writing or how entertaining this was to read?

I’m not going to give away too much of the plot (no more than if you were to read the jacket flap) as I believe the reader will find pleasure in experiencing Miller’s story on their own. The story centers on John Lacroix who returns home from an ongoing war, wounded, scarred by what he has seen and carrying a sense of guilt over his own culpability in a brutal incident. He decides that he cannot return to war, becoming a deserter. He sets out to escape being forced back into service, to escape his own conscience and, if possible, seek some redemption. Little does he know that he is being pursued by two men that have much more sinister plans than forcing him back into service. A sense of menace permeates the novel and there is a perfectly odious villain, but Miller does offset this with some lightness and humor mixed into his tale.

I have praised story and writing but Miller is also a thoughtful and intelligent writer, not an author that simply gives the reader a suspenseful, well-written and entertaining historical novel. He does have something to say, serious issues he wants to explore. He looks at how war begets a violence in some men, how war can strip away their humanity and moral conscience. Miller has much to say and I hope he finds readers that will come, not just for the great story telling, but to discover those themes that run deeper throughout the book.

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t say enough good things about this book! Completely held my attention and I read it in one sitting, 410 pages!!!

It is a work of fiction, historical fiction. It is about a young Englishman who comes back wounded from fighting in the Peninsular War/Napoleonic Wars over in Spain in 1809. He harbors a terrible secret that occurred in the war under his watch, and there are people out there, one from Spain and one from England who seek to kill him for different reasons regarding the episode contained in this secret. There were a couple of twists in the plot that I did not expect, and that is always good…it’s not good if the overall plot and ending is predictable in a novel of 410 pages.

The writing was crisp. There might have been a couple of places that my interest was flagging but it was a page each at best–so not an issue! 😊

Characters were believable. There is a villain but one gets acquainted with this villain’s childhood, and…well I won’t say anything more because I don’t want to include any spoilers about this book. I would want you to come at this book, if you decide to put it on your TBR list, with the knowledge that it has received favorable reviews (see below for some links), and then take it from there and read away. I became aware of this book through the November 11, 2019 issue of the New Yorker in its Briefly Noted section. That section of The New Yorker is something I reliably go to for very issue…because I value their recommendations. And the re-issue of the book is from Europa Editions–it seems that every book I have read under that publishing house I really like (The Elena Ferrante Neopolitan series; The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery).

There were a couple of sentences that resonated with me:
| His farm was a mile off and she walked through a wind scented with snow.
| Then she stood a while in the odd grey light of the snow, looking at the soft confusion of footprints by the door of the house.
| In Jura, in a boarding house, they sat out two days of the storm, the weather dementing against the windows so that they dared not sit too close for fear the glass would come in.

Reviews:
About mainly the book but also about Andrew Miller, a really good review!: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/bo...

https://literaryreview.co.uk/missing-...

I liked how John Bayne put it when reviewing the book for the Irish Times put it:
“The joy of reading an Andrew Miller novel is his obvious passion for story and sensual language, and his ability to interweave the two seamlessly. The former is an often-forgotten art form in the contemporary novel, which often seeks to impress rather than entertain, but the latter is what makes him one of the most impressive novelists at work today.” (https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo..., 8/25/2018)

[Jo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, I'm glad that I'm now entirely free from that appallingly tedious experience. I mean I'm flummoxed, I really am. This was such an underwhelming read, but I suppose I should be glad really, glad that I haven't encountered anything this bad for a long time.

I bought this new from Waterstones, and if my memory serves me well, the man that served me even recommended it as a 'Must read'. The beautiful cover is the only redeemable aspect of this sorry tale and even then, I can't bring myself to mark it up a star solely because of that.

First off, on the back cover this is sold as 'The world of Jane Austen bespattered by mud, atrocity and driving rain' when in reality this book doesn't remotely remind me of Austen, not even a smidgen. I find advertising like this terribly misleading, and pretty exasperating, actually.

John is a soldier with some secret, and he holds this secret close to him throughout the book. We then have two men that have orders to kill John because of this secret, and obviously, this fiasco continues throughout the book amongst a lot of time wasting waiting upon various ships and such. Well, do you know what John? You can keep your secret.

The dialogue was increasingly dull and really rather abrupt in the style. Sentences felt ended midway leaving a massive hole where more elaboration should have been. It was odd.

This was a huge disappointment of something I was really looking forward to read, but right now, I'm relieved that I'm finished, and I can add another book to my charity bag.

[Karen·]

My first outing with Mr Miller was delightful, if somewhat short-lived. He has a felicitous ability to give a real sense of the suck and slick of mud, the damp chill of a long unused room, the sensuous feel of silk, the rawness of fustian; he has a felicitous ability to conjure a charming turn of phrase, he skilfully manages shifts in perspective, he steals in close to his characters, he has the confidence to leave some of the action offstage, let the reader make up her own mind as to what happened to the warm-hearted, sensible housekeeper (nothing good I fear). Historical fiction should have something to say about the present, and this does, yes, for in our age there are still atrocities that take place under the cover of war and shouldn't the perpetrators be held accountable? But how does the experience of war contribute to brutalization, and is that any excuse?
Add in an interesting excursion into the development of surgery and hygiene, and, (my personal highlight) a mention of Mingulay, a place filled for me with happy memories of fulmars, kittiwakes, razorbills and puffins, oh, and some people too, although the island was abandoned in 1912. So why, I'm sure you're wondering, why was this engrossing read so short-lived? Well, it's almost as if Mr Miller was afeared that all these delights would not suffice, so he tacked on a thrilling if highly implausible persecution of Our Hero that made it impossible NOT to keep turning those pages until... until..... well, perhaps I shouldn't give too much away, but until the end anyway. The suspense was well crafted, but manipulative and, to my mind, unnecessary, the motivation behind the pursuit of Lacroix completely ludicrous, the baddy somewhat overcooked in his devilry.
At the time of reading, I was more than happy to suspend disbelief, and just enjoy the ride.
According to this article at the Guardian, when asked what it meant to be a novelist Andrew Miller replied:“Eyes open, heart open, feet on the ground.” That would do. I don't think he needs the flights of fancy.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel I'd have no reservations about recommending to everyone. An outrage is committed by British soldiers in a Spanish village during the war with Napoleon. To appease the Spanish an English corporal is instructed to find the commanding officer and kill him. He travels with a Spaniard, present to provide testimony the deed has been done. The novel's chapters alternate between the assassin and his prey. The English captain has no idea he's being hunted but has been mentally damaged by his experience of war. To avoid returning to his regiment he sets out for the Hebrides with a vague idea of learning the music of the islands. Miller's eye for historical detail is a constant delight and the world he evokes brilliantly vivid. The plot fizzes with dramatic tension. And of course there's a great twist.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The last part of the journey was the most tedious. They felt they were close but they weren’t, not yet. They crossed the border, crossed a line of hills, crossed another ….. There was something military about it”

My first book by this author whose previous books have won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Costa/Whitbread Prize and IMPAC Dublin Literary award and been shortlisted for the Booker prize– I was drawn to this book by a review in the Guardian which stated “the fact it’s not made this year’s Man Booker longlist is already something of a travesty”. In practice though I discovered that this was the type of book that I do not enjoy when it is longlisted – The North Water being the closest parallel.

The book is set in the early 19th Century – and opens with a wounded and seemingly traumatised British officer – Lacroix - from the Peninsular War being returned to his Somerset home where he is nursed back to health by his housekeeper. When he recovers, seemingly haunted by what he saw or did in the war, he decides to set out for the far Hebrides to rediscover his sense of himself. In a parallel story another soldier Calley takes part in a military enquiry into a massacre carried out by a small contingent of the retreating British army under Lacroix. After the enquiry he is called into an encounter with a literally shadowy figure (seemingly Arthur Wellesley) who orders him to track down and kill Lacroix (accompanied by Medina a Spanish officer as witness) so as to restore relationships with the offended Spanish.

Thereafter the chapters alternate between Lacroix’s passage North (which culminates in him joining a small commune of free-thinkers where he falls gradually in love with one of the girls and accompanies her back to Glasgow for a pioneering eye operation on what appears to be glaucoma) and Calley and Medina’s pursuit of him (woven through with callous acts of violence on those who they extract information from) – a pursuit which includes a rather unnecessary unwitting and unrealised intersection of the two journeys.

At one point Lacroix speculates on what a child might see in 1870:

“A sky full of air balloons. Balloons driven by steam …. Sightseers would fly to the islands from London, drop anchor in a spot like this, swarm around with their sketch books, then up a ladder again and off to … Iceland. Greenland. America”

It is difficult not to draw the parallels with the Booker longlisted – Washington Black but this book could not be more different –a grounded, sail-powered, classical boys adventure with a simple and linear storyline rather than a fantastical, steam punk exploration of ideas.

On one level it is impressive to have a book which makes no attempt at post-modernism (other than using the names of those in the My Lai massacre for some of the characters), at allegory, or at drawing parallels with modern events (any hint of Brexit in the British retreat from Europe is purely accidental) – however, in my view, this robs historical fiction of much of its interest for me.

Miller’s writing can be strong, in landscape or weather and character. Calley in particular is an unceasingly hardened character clearly based on Wellesley’s famous possibly apocryphal quote about his Peninsular conscripts: my favourite is when some sailors spot some whales and while Medina wonders at them “Calley preferred not to look but made a face, a whale-hating face, that lasted several minutes”.

But overall I found this an uninteresting book – far too masculine: the author has stated he was looking to reproduce “the kind of energetic adventure stories” he read and loved as a boy.

He has I think succeeded in that but failed in drawing in this reader – as perhaps my choice of opening quote indicates.

2.5 stars rounded up.

[nastya · Rating 2 out of 5]

During The Napoleonic wars, the Englishman suddenly comes back home in a half-dead state and then he goes on the run from some secret he left behind in Spain. Meanwhile in Spain the English army is pressured to investigate war crimes English soldiers committed in Spanish village, the English and Spanish soldiers are sent to hunt the officer responsible. So we get two plotlines, the one of a destroyed man running away from the past and the two men on a mission.

I loved the beginning. And I kept liking this book less with every chapter until I was pushing myself towards the finish line, hoping I can still enjoy something in the book. I did not. I cared so little that I wasn’t even curious about revelations about the mystery that drove the whole chase (and it was obvious in the middle of the book, I waited for a twist that never came).

The pacing… It was peculiar. Simultaneously nervous, choppy and unengaging, and at the same time we were suffering scenes after scenes that gave me nothing.

The writing was so melodramatic and flashy, completely failing in creating any connection to anything or anyone in the story. Flat boring characters I was somehow expected to empathize with. Bizarre failure of the novel from the venerated writer of fiction.

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well now, that was amazing. A brilliantly told historical fiction novel, with rich characters and a wonderful plot - such tensely dramatic moments! I'd highly recommend, and will definitely be reading more by Andrew Miller in the future.

[Issicratea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andrew Miller is a compelling wordsmith, and for that reason he is on my list of authors whose novels I read “automatically.” Now We Shall Be Entirely Free has many virtues--beautiful writing, interesting, quirky historical setting, a certain interest in narrative momentum—along with a killer vice, a rather light hand with historical verisimilitude, which ultimately problematizes the novel for me.

Writing this review, I looked back over my previous reviews of Miller’s novels, and I was interested to see how ambivalent I had been right down the path. I liked Oxygen and Pure; I really liked his earlier Ingenious Pain; I felt The Crossing, his last novel, was a breakthrough. With NWSBEF, I am back in ambivalent terrain.

There are certain similarities to The Crossing—a character who somehow goes beyond, off the end of the known world, and a lot of sea-faring fabulousness, and wondrously ethereal descriptions of water and sky. Miller has plunged here back into his usual pre-1900 settings, however—researched fairly thoroughly (I loved the long section on an avant-garde eye hospital in Glasgow), but chosen also with an eye to relevance to the contemporary world.

The novel’s Peninsular Wars setting was something that attracted me to it (I enjoyed Thomas Hardy’s evocation of that period in The Trumpet Major). The wars of 1808-15 in the Iberian peninsula were an important episode within the Napoleonic wars generally, but historical recollection of them on the whole is not especially strong.

Miller portrays a soldier returning from those wars with what we would now recognize as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He may, or may not, have committed some atrocity in the war which he has chosen to banish to the far reaches of his mind. A state-sponsored assassin may, or may not, be coming on his path with a nebulous task of vengeance. The thriller nonsense that unspools from this plotline is relatively engaging, but I’m not sure this element of suspense was entirely necessary to keep me reading. The delicacy of Miller’s descriptions—of shimmering Hebridean landscapes, of the complex, elegant emotional universes of his lightly sketched protagonists—are enough to continue to engage us without something so crude as a “he’s coming after yer” plot.

As for the verisimilitude issue, Miller focuses on British troops’ atrocities in the retreat to La Coruna in 1809, taking his cue from a letter of the commander, John Moore, who described British troops’ behaviour as “infamous beyond belief”. It is not hard to believe that atrocities against civilians happened, but whether they would have been processed the way that they are in this novel seems highly unlikely to me. This breach of realism vitiated the whole novel for me--as an engagement with history, at least.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re looking for a good story after the Booker baker’s dozen of finest fiction, Andrew Miller’s Now We Shall Be Entirely Free awaits you. It’s exciting, compelling, and thoroughly interesting. With his lovely prose, Miller has refashioned a flight-pursuit trope into an historical novel or, perhaps more accurately, an historical fantasy set loosely in the the Napoleonic Wars. Miller also intentionally or unintentionally repurposes the My Lai massacre as part of his historical fantasy, even incorporating the names of three court martialed US Army officers. As in other compelling flight-pursuit thrillers—Thomas Perry’s Jane Whitefield as a wonderful example—Now We Shall Be Entirely Free centers on the flight of a good guy who’s done something bad. A shadowy, powerful organization or person hires trackers to locate the fleeing good guy. The trackers typically include at least one amoral, sometimes sadistic team member, plus a sometimes ever so slightly more kind hearted sidekick. The trackers’ pursuit wreaks havoc and pain on numerous willing and unwilling folks who enabled the fleer in his flight. Familiar to the flight-pursuit trope, love redeems the fleeing good guy and we’re left with an hopeful but unresolved ending.

I’m not a reader who insists on internal consistency or historical accuracy within a novel: I prefer both as evidence of authorial and editorial care, but I can enjoy a novel even without them. I don’t feel the need to fact-check novels, whether set contemporaneously or in the early nineteenth century. But I admit that Miller’s dating surgical handwashing and glaucoma surgery to the early from the mid-nineteenth century of Semmelweis and von Graefe left me slightly disgruntled.

As mentioned above, I enjoyed Now We Shall Be Entirely Free immensely and it afforded me a welcome opportunity to completely lose myself in a good story. I would appreciate it even more if Miller took the extra steps of more adroitly weaving My Lai and historical accuracy into his narrative.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 2018 Man Booker long list contains a book in which a man returns from war and struggles to come to terms with what he saw and did (The Long Take). It also includes a work of historical fiction (Washington Black). Andrew Miller’s new novel combines these two ideas and it initially seems a travesty that Edugyan’s book sits on the Man Booker list and Miller’s has been passed over.

We meet John Lacroix as he returns from the Peninsula War (1809), a man physically and mentally damaged by what has happened. He is nursed back to health by his housekeeper and sets off for Scotland. Meanwhile, we meet Calley who is a soldier in Portugal giving evidence about a war atrocity in a village. Calley names the officer in charge of the men committing the atrocity and he is charged with finding and assassinating him with a Spanish soldier accompanying him to be a witness and avoid any duplicity by the British. We are not immediately told, but we assume the officer is Lacroix.

The story proceeds in alternating chapters following Lacroix as he travels and Calley as he pursues. Lacroix heads to the Hebrides where he finds the possibility of love. Calley goes around beating people up if he thinks they might know where his quarry is. Having spent many happy holidays on Hebridean islands, I was frustrated for a while by not knowing on which island Lacroix lands because I wanted to be able to picture it and not have it as a generic Scottish island. Also, there is no real sense of the passage of time. So, when both parallel stories take their characters to the same location, you have to initially assume they are there at the same time because there is no way to know that, but the book would make little sense if it were not the case.

The central tension for the reader is that Lacroix, despite his taciturn nature and his obvious war damage, seems like a decent man. He’s a 19th century version of Walker from The Long Take. It is impossible, really, not to start to believe in him and want him to recover and be happy. Can he really be the man behind the atrocity that Calley is seeking and will ruthlessly kill when he finds him?

But the book itself is strangely unconvincing. There are several factual or contextual errors:

1. The second sentence in the book makes reference to the left hand horse of a pair in tandem and this simply makes no sense.
2. The island on which Lacroix settles for a while is initially reported as having no trees, then it has a few trees, then it is treeless.
3. At one point, people sit round a dining table discussing John Clare’s poetry. But this is 1809 and Clare was not published until 1820.
4. I have holidayed in the Hebrides for several years and the writing set there is generic and characterless: it is hard to believe Miller has been there and it feels like “The Hebrides” is a convenient way of saying “somewhere a long way away”.
5. I am not at all sure about referring to the river in Liverpool as the River Mercy. It sounds like an old name for the river, but I can’t find any evidence it is an actual old name for the river.

That said, there is some beautiful writing in the book.

"He drank a glass of wine. He didn’t want anything stronger. He was experimenting with clarity, with time in its ordinary clothes."

And

"…rain in columns of faint shadow drifted landwards."

Is the beautiful writing enough to overcome the lack of conviction? For this reader, no. For many readers, probably yes. Once I noticed some things wrong, I found myself spending more time fact checking than enjoying the story which was a shame because nearly all the facts are OK if you look into them. But once a seed of doubt has been sown, it is hard for a book to recover.

This was my first experience of Miller. He can certainly write beautiful prose. It’s a shame that, for this reader, the attention to detail let the book down.

[Benedict Lane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ah we’ve fucked it lads, don’t think we’re going to be selling many of these next month.

I literally just finished the book and yet I would still struggle to tell you anything significant that happens in it - for some reason the majority of the story revolves around a woman’s decision to have eye surgery?

The main protagonist John Lacroix is possibly the most bland literary character I’ve ever encountered. There’s nothing complex or compelling about him at all. Instead, all the most interesting parts of the book come through Corporal Calley - the psychopathic soldier hired to hunt him down - who spends the entire story pursuing Lacroix only to be instantly shot dead the moment he finds him - no dramatic face-off or anything.

(Oh yes, by the way, the “shameful secret” that Lacroix is seeking to escape is that he oversaw numerous war crimes during his time in the army and that’s why he’s being hunted - admittedly not a fantastic way to create sympathy for your lead character)

The only redeeming quality of the book is that it was relatively well-told - even though Miller was telling a story where for the most part (and I can’t stress this enough) NOTHING HAPPENS, he tells it in a way that keeps you turning the page.

HOWEVER, were I for some strange reason inclined to recommend this book to as many people as possible, I suppose I would (falsely) describe it as “a brilliantly-told page-turner of a Napoleonic-era thriller that tells the story of a man desperately seeking to escape his violent past - a past that is ominously threatening to catch up to him at every turn”

[Claire Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this historical drama about Captain John Lecroix who in 1809 is brought back wounded from the Napoleonic wars in Spain. Instead of returning to his regiment he flees to Bristol, Glasgow and ultimately the Hebrides. On his trail are two soldiers under secret orders - and one of them, Calley, is particularly nasty and actually scared me. The two stories come together right at the end (which was a little rushed for me). I loved the ambiguous ending.
Beautifully written, especially the descriptions of place - both cities and landscape.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a historical novel set in the Napoleonic wars, more specifically during the Peninsular Wars and the retreat from Corunna. During the retreat atrocities are committed by British soldiers. Captain John Lacroix was part of the retreat. He arrives home in Somerset with health compromised and has to recuperate. Meanwhile back in Portugal two people are asked with finding Lacroix. They are Corporal Calley, an Englishman and a Spanish Officer, Medina. They don’t have to bring him back to Portugal. As Lacroix recovers he decides to go to the Scottish Highlands as part of his recovery.
In the highlands and islands Lacroix (travelling as a Mr Lovell) meets a group of people living a little unconventionally and falls in love with one of the women. Calley and Medina start to look for Lacroix and follow him. Thereby hangs the tale.
This covers a number of subjects: the nature of war, justice, culpability, freethinking, cultural difference, sea travel, amongst other things. Miller adds in heightened vulnerability. Lacroix has impaired hearing from the war and his love interest Emily is going blind because of cataracts. There are two distinct narrative lines, Lacroix and his pursuers and they don’t converge until the end.
There are flaws: the ending is very much a damp squib and Miller tries to cover way too much ground. It’s nicely written and some of the historical parts are interesting, but it was a relief to finish it.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Andrew Miller novel, and it was a pretty great one.

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free is a historical novel, but it is also many other things - a war novel, a romance, an adventure story, a cat and mouse chase, a story of friendship. Above all it is a suspenseful story about one man running away from his past.

We meet our protagonist, John Lacroix, on a rainy night in 1809. John has been brought home from Spain and the Peninsular War in a bad way, and is left with his housekeeper in rural Somerset. But we soon learn John has a past he needs to escape. Still unwell, but with no choice but to leave home and travel across the country in order to escape his past, we follow John travel from home to Bristol, Glasgow, and finally the Hebrides. But the questions still remain: what happened in Spain and Portugal? Why are the erratic English corporal and Spanish officer on his tail? And will things work out for John, or will the war catch up with him? As mentioned above, this isn't just the story of escaping the ravages of war. John meets a whole host of memorable characters on the way - my particular favourites were the residents of the Hebrides.

I don't read a whole lot of historical fiction, but something about the plot description of this one really appealed to me, and I'm so glad I got to read this memorable story. Miller's prose is stunning, and I found the story completely absorbing - the descriptions of Glasgow in the 1800s were some of the most striking for me. Recommended to fans of historical fiction and even to sceptics like myself - I think anyone who enjoys a story well-told will find something to love here.

Thank you Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Victoria (Eve's Alexandria) · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some books that do everything for you while you’re reading them. The experience is a giddy rush. Then there are others that have to seed and grow over the longer term, and are richer for it. Now We Shall Be Entirely Free falls in the latter category. It’s a beautiful, humane novel, expertly crafted. There is nothing flashy or showy or new about it; it sits very squarely in the tradition of linear, historically well situated fiction. It’s beautifully written. While being incredibly serious in themes it’s playful and sensitive in its delivery. What makes it stand out is it’s emotional and psychology delicacy, the very deliberate and respectful way in which the plot intrudes into people’s lives. It’s equally interested in its villains and it’s heroes, and gives a lot of energy to its peripheral figures. More than anything it focuses on the tentative, partial ways in which people come to know themselves and to know others. I loved it, and will probably love it more over time. A book of the year.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book has two strands that run in parallel. The first is Lacroix’s long journey north from his house in Somerset via Bristol, the home of his sister Lucy, to the Hebrides. It’s a journey he makes without much thought of a particular destination; it’s more about avoiding being recalled to service in the army and trying to escape the memories that haunt him. Only towards the end of the book will he reveal the nature of those memories to a confidante to whom he has become close. In the course of his journey, Lacroix experiences both the best and worst of humanity, experiencing violence but also the kindness of strangers. Eventually he arrives at a remote island in the Hebrides where he is given shelter by the Frend family, comprising Emily, her sister Jane, and their brother Cornelius. One of the themes running through the book is damage – physical, mental and emotional – so it’s notable that Emily is losing her sight and Cornelius is plagued by dental pain. John himself has been left partially deaf due to the illness he suffered on his return from Spain.

The second storyline involves Corporal Calley who has been given a mission by a mysterious individual to track down and kill Lacroix as part of a cover-up of atrocities committed in the war. Calley is the most relentless of adversaries; he’s cruel, brutal and entirely without mercy, committing some horrific acts along the way.  As he closes in on his prey, there is an increasing air of menace, especially since Lacroix is unaware of Calley’s mission.

At the end of the book, although some elements of the story are resolved others, in the manner of a sea fret, are left opaque for the reader to reach their own conclusion about.

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free is the first book I’ve read by Andrew Miller and I can now understand why his writing has been the subject of so much praise. At times, it’s poetic in nature. One passage that especially sticks in my mind is from a scene in which two characters finally come together in an act of intimacy. ‘A mutual falling, the grief of appetite. And in between the touching, the tender manoeuvres, the new knowledge.’  

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having recently gotten into Literary Fiction, I was intrigued to read one of distinguished writer Andrew Miller's books. So when this came up, I jumped at the chance. It didn't take long before I was transfixed by the luscious, poetic prose, it had me practically mesmerised and soon I was wholly invested in the story. As a massive fan of Haruki Murakami, the intricate descriptions are very much something I enjoy, so, naturally, I absolutely fell in love with this book. Essentially, the novel explores culpability within the context and confines of the story.

I appreciated the inclusion of the Hebrides, but having holidayed on various of those stunning islands for many years, I couldn't understand the lack of detail and almost sparseness of the prose in those parts. If you have ever been to any of the islands you'll know what I mean when I say it's impossible not to be affected by the beauty all around. I wonder whether Miller has actually been to any of them, if he in fact has visited them, I feel he's missed a trick as the scenery is perfect for an evocative story such as this and could provide vivid imagery to the reader.

This is a powerful, moving and magnificent novel, that certainly deserves to be read by a wide audience. I have already purchased his previous books which will take pride of place on my favourite bookshelf. Be prepared to be hypnotised!

Many thanks to Sceptre for an ARC. I was not required to post a review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the romance aspect of the story which was delicate and softly handled. However the central storyline relating to alleged war crimes was ineffective as it was too obvious from the beginning who the criminal was and way too much time revolved around the quest for justice. A tad underwhelming.

[Pili · Rating 2 out of 5]

Algún día tenía que pasar...
Por primera vez en años, una recomendación hecha por el personal de Waterstones no me terminó de convencer.
El autor escribe de una manera elegante y sofisticada pero no pasa nada relevante.

[Neale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have ambivalent feelings about historical fiction. In some ways, ironically, it is the quickest of all fiction to become dated – I suppose because it is the judgement of one era on another, and says as much about the era that produced it as the era that it is recreating in its own image. At least historical fiction doesn’t have the haircut problem that historical television invariably suffers from.

When I read the opening chapter of this book, however, I was convinced – not so much by the historical details, which are applied sparingly but to good effect, but by the combination of precise and uncluttered visuals, human sympathy and language that can be delicate or blunt or visceral as required, but always beautifully modulated. Every word counts.

It struck me reading this that one of the pleasures of historical fiction is that it can’t take the world for granted, as a modern book can – everything that is different from our world has to be described or implied with language, has to be created afresh. Even small things, like a horn spoon. It shares this with fantasy and science fiction. In the hands of a good writer, like Miller, this can create a vision of the world that is powerfully clear and unexpected.

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical & Literary context

From the opening paragraphs the reader is informed that the setting is 1809, more than two centuries ago. The style of writing and the language used, in particular Calley’s cussing is conveyed in modern vernacular! Is that a good thing or not? Should the language differ to convey authenticity? Or does the contemporary feel bring home to the reader that emotions and morals, and the gruesomeness of hand to hand war combat haven’t changed much during the time?
I have never studied the Napoleonic wars, and especially the Spanish campaign and the peninsular wars. To have done so is not a prerequisite for appreciating this historic fiction, but I was prompted to check out the conflict as a result of reading Now We Shall be Entirely Free. That’s a good thing.

Miller splices together three elements drawn from the nineteenth century

War

Reading this at a time when war rages over Ukraine I am struck by a number of parallels. Foremost, and this underpins Miller’s story, is the abandonment of concepts of fairness or of any noble intent in war. A British army ‘incident’ is investigated, and the reader is a party to a slick chase (the pursuit of Lacroix) throughout the British isles and the perpetrators of brutality against prisoners, and women, and the civilian community are to be brought to summary justice. It is noted that the French soldiers were equally depredatory in their behaviour (at Corunna).
The concept of “total war” was articulated by Carl von Clausewitz, (in his book On War ) immediately after the Napoleonic wars, published in 1832). The idea that honour, or integrity were sustained in the face of brutal killing and rampage was dismantled in Clausewitz’s book. Today as the Ukraine war rages, there are many calls for the aggressors to be charged for war crimes.
In the storyline, a key (and very clever, and subtle part of the narrative) concerns the leading lady, Emily. She is not impressed with soldiers and the military and she carries a quotation from Leigh Hunt which regards soldiery as the “dastardly carcass of corruption”

Naturalism, Vegetarianism

Miller shifts the centre of action to the Scottish highlands and islands (via Glasgow). Its almost John Buchan The Thirty Nine Steps !! The Frend family are foragers for historical evidence; they study rocks and are ardently opposed to meat eating. A separate group of free spirits merrily frolic naked in streams and lakes (Phyrro). The book’s (very plausible) baddie, Calley, dismisses them as “wa**kers” !!!!!
Cornelius asks Lacroix if he believes in Buffon, the French naturalist.
Lacroix buys Huttons Principles of Knowledge

Medical Pioneers

The newly built Glasgow Royal Infirmary is the centre of a storyline for pioneering treatment of glaucoma.
The great dome provides the main source of light for operations to take place (despite patients having to be carried up stairs)! Radical developments in hygiene (i.e the washing of hands) are cited as evidence of the new modernity.. Eye surgeon, Mr Rizzo states that he is a follower of the Spallanzani school.

Questions

• Lacroix purchases a gun . The vendor says he can provide “the dog’s particulars” (page 88). But the Dog Licences Act didn’t come into force until 1867
• Why was Ranald not killed?
• What was the significance of Captain Wood, who brings Lacroix’s trunk back to England?

The Underlying Conspiracy

While the central focus of the book is on the truth of events surrounding the actions in Los Morales, and then the chase for Lacroix driven by Calley; the clever, underlying sub plot concerns Emily and the Scottish Islands community of which the Frends are a part. Emily and her sister, Jane, have come under the influence of commune leader, Thorpe.
Page 302 reveals all: Calley and his Spanish chaperone, Medina, are shown a grave where they were told the man they sought (i.e Lacroix) was buried, having killed himself.
“when (Calley) tugged free a corner of the canvass they saw a man’s black hair. He tugged again and they had the whole head. The weight of the stones had done something to the shape of his face… but he was not much altered by his stay in the ground and would be recognised by those who had known him in life
On the body they find a pendant of woman’s eye. “His Lucy” .

The All Seeing Eye represents a higher power keeping watch over humankind - a symbol of protection, good karma and inner peace. Lucia (from the Latin word "lux" which means "light"). In paintings St. Lucy is frequently shown holding her eyes on a golden plate.
This must be (the disappeared) Thorpe, and it explains two things.

(1) Why Emily was so forgiving (immediately so), when she heard John Lacroix speak of his appalling lack of leadership and inaction at Los Morales. Had Emily been involved in the killing of Thorpe (a proponent of free love who had impregnated her sister)? Lacroix observed in the immediacy of their physical love after his confession: “she does not especially mind what I have done and she knows more about this thing we are doing than I“. Was Emily spurned by Thorpe, or her sister abused? Who and how many killed Thorpe?

(2) Why the final line of the book (the book’s title) has resonance not only for Lacroix, but for Emily too. They have rid themselves of two enemies.


Recommend

I enjoyed this book a lot and will read the newly published the Slowworm’s Song . Hopefully when he promotes the latest novel, the chance will arise to ask Andrew Miller about the Frend love triangle, and my suspicions about Thorpe’s death.

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a horrible irony to the jubilant exclamation Emily makes when she and John LaCroix are about to meet with the ship that will take them to Canada—“Now we shall be entirely free!”—and it’s almost painful to consider that this woman who has so ably and clear-sightedly (!) born the innovative surgery to her fast failing eyes has somehow remained blind to their circumstances. While LaCroix and Emily may find for themselves a new life in Canada, Miller suggests that they will never be entirely free; the decay/corruption of her vision and his moral being has only been arrested, and they will the rest of their lives carry on with debilities.

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free is a stark and clear-headed, plainspoken novel, even as Miller early on obscures John LaCroix’s culpability for the English soldiers’ killing and rape of Spanish civilians in the village of Morales in 1809. There are in the outlines of this story only a handful of characters, and while they operate with their own fully-fleshed agency, they are figures in a morality play that spares no one, and only offers as succor the appearance of a flight into freedom.

Aware of the moral collapse and monstrous actions of the infantry under his command during the retreat of English forces from northern Spain, John LaCroix survives illness and the transport back to England and to his family’s estate. He is nursed over several weeks by a single domestic, Nell, because the estate is empty, LaCroix’s parents dead, and his two sisters married, living elsewhere. His body recovers, but his silence betokens some other wound not healed. Meanwhile, outside his ken, political/martial forces in Spain mount a quasi-moral restitution for the destruction of Morales, and LaCroix is chosen to be the scapegoat. Corporal Calley, a fierce infantryman with only simple animal instincts (and deemed “born to be unloved”), is given the covert assignment to track LaCroix and kill him, taking with him a representative from the Spanish army to certify that the agreed retribution has been carried out.

Of the two furies, English-speaking Spanish officer Medina is the more humane, but he is obliged to merely accompany the sour, single-minded Calley in their pursuit of LaCroix. Miller handles well the twined stories of hunter and hunted, and while LaCroix is unaware till late in the novel that he is being pursued, the reader is continually, anxiously aware of an eventual convergence. One striking coincidence in their separate sojourns is the arrival of LaCroix at the homestead of a splinter group of free-thinkers on a Scottish isle and Calley and Medina’s meet-up with the leader and a group of those free-thinkers in Wales. LaCroix and Medina sense the freedoms promised by these proto-hippies and each is able to re-assess their past and the war they’ve fought in distant Spain from a novel perspective. Calley, on the other hand, cannot abide nor understand what these nature-loving ponces are on about…

In Glasgow, shortly after Emily’s second surgery on her failing eyes, she and LaCroix learn from one of the victims of Calley’s interrogations that he (LaCroix) is being hunted down. LaCroix and Emily have been tentatively assuming things of one another, but this becomes a moment of truth, and LaCroix must reveal to her his shameful part in the bloody debacle at Morales. Thereafter, the story describes a race back to the small isle to prevent harm to Emily’s family and the grim, inevitable convergence of the implacable executioner and the contigently guilty.

Miller tells a good story, one that bears re-reading for the concrete novelties that bestrew LaCroix’s path as he tries to escape the spectres of his mind. Similarly, the interchanges between Calley and Medina, two mismatched souls charged with LaCroix’s execution, are verbally spare but charged with the disparity of their perceptions. Even as Miller has stripped away the dross to make this novel an elemental story of crime, vengeance, and absolution, he’s contrived ways to infuse tension, dread, remorse, and hope. As an early 19th century Romantic might say, “It’s sublime.”

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimately, this is a book about the horrors of war, and what it does to the humans who are involved in it.....the ordinary men who took up arms and went off to fight for causes that they possibly didn’t really understand.....wars that were caused by men who craved power, who needed to dominate others.

War, it’s brutality, it’s deprivations and challenges could certainly bring out the best in some men, but inevitably, horrifyingly, it could also bring out the very worst in others.
Once an army was in retreat, humiliated, starving, and no longer with any meaningful leadership, some men lost all their humanity and decency.

John Lacroix, a Captain who has fought against Napoleon in Spain, a campaign that ended in defeat and a disastrous retreat, is returned to his family’s country house in Somerset a broken man.....he lives alone there, apart from a loyal young housekeeper, who nurses him back to health, but there is a cloud hanging over him, he is deeply troubled by the things he has seen, and although he’s expected to return to duty, he decides instead to travel to the far Scottish Islands to pursue his love of folk music, and to try and find peace from the shadowy images that haunt him.

Cawley is an English corporal, a liar with secrets he needs to hide.....he is also pure evil.....along with a Spanish officer, he is tasked with following Lacroix, and eliminating him.

This book has many layers, Lacroix’s convoluted journey is peopled by some very interesting characters, and is full of many surprising twists and turns....there is a love story of sorts, a look into the mind of a man desperate to find peace and a meaning to his life after the horrific futility of war, and, the constant threat of a damaged, amoral man who will stop at nothing to achieve his evil intentions.......

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A curious and compelling story, that questions how people are to navigate through turbulent emotions following a traumatic experiences, grief and self reproach - to then find a sense of direction in their lives.

Following Captain John Lacroix, who managed to survive the British army’s horrendous retreat through Spain whilst battling Napoleon, the reader quickly discovers his desire to run from his past. So he travels to the Hebrides in Northern Scotland, but little does he know that the Army have sent two soldiers to hunt him down and make him accountable for his inaction.

With lyrical writing and a perfectly paced plot, the tension of the impending confrontation mounts whilst allowing the reader to become attached to the main characters. Forcing the reader to question what is right. If relentless action is more heinous than indifferent inaction. Is freedom obtained within social conventions or should it be taken through independent will and expression.

A thoroughly intriguing read and well placed in the historical setting, with enough references to critique modern society.

[Noelia Alonso]

DNF at page 219

This was a gift and so wanted to enjoy it. Sadly, this novel did not work for me at all. I didn’t like the writing style and at page 219 I still hadn’t connected with any the characters, I just didn’t care about anything or anyone.