The Giant on the Skyline: On Home, Belonging and Learning to Let Go

(Paperback)

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Faced with the sudden prospect of uprooting her young children to move to the US, while her eldest fly the nest to university, the acclaimed memoirist and nature writer considers what home means, and what ties us to the places we love. 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.

Reviews

A deeply felt meditation on home, belonging, place and memory Restless, questing, The Giant on the Skyline is a travel book about wanting to stay put: a pilgrimage through a fabled English landscape Strouds best memoir yet, the most invigoratingly expansive, strikingly written. Moving Transformative. -- Patricia Nichol * Daily Mail *
Stroud writes gloriously a deeply thoughtful exploration of the meaning of home and belonging. * i News *
Perhaps more than any other writer, Stroud has taken the elegant, elliptical memoir and forged it into the genre of life writing In the Giant on the Skyline, Stroud has produced something exceptional: a mystical meditatation on what home means and what constitutes belonging It is magical and haunting and profoundly moving. Stroud is exceptionally evocative when writing about nature and family even grungy Wantage with its Greggs and charity shops sounds alluring the way Stroud describes it. -- Flora Watkins * Spectator *
Strouds writing is assured, visceral, sexy as well as sensuous, richly coloured in every way, and often freshly poetic, whether dealing with a toddlers tears over the broccoli touching the gravy, or with death and loss. She paints her way through the book with striking word pictures Orgasmic time, druids, gentle giants The reader swirls like a leaf on a stream, coming out amazed by the richness and unknownness of other peoples lives. -- Philippa Stockley * The Oldie *
One of the books we're most looking forward to in 2024: I'm a huge fan of Clover Stroud's writing and this memoir about home and what it means to us sounds fascinating. * Good Housekeeping *

Author Bio

Clover Stroud is a writer and journalist, writing regularly for the Sunday Times, the Guardian and the Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, among others. She also hosts a popular podcast called Tiny Acts of Bravery. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild and Sleepless Nights- A Mother's Story, and third book, The Red of My Blood- A Death and Life Story, were instant Sunday Times bestsellers and rated 'best books of the year'. She is currently living in Washington DC with her husband and the youngest three of her five children.