The Western Wind: A Novel

he Writer Samantha Harvey wrote the novel The Western Wind about the village of Oakham in the East Midlands of England. The book takes place on Wednesday, the four days before Ash Wednesday, in 1491. The novel takes place before the Protestant Reformation. The book is told from the point of view of the parish priest, John Reve. Reve is a very human priest who feels he has three significant sins he has never confessed to. I read the book on the Kindle. The community is mainly poor and has a “fallen bridge” (Harvey 18) that used to connect Oakham to the rest of England and to continental Europe. Reve struggles to live up to how some of the residents of Oakham view him as next to Jesus in the eyes of God (Harvey 314). Others in the community subtly suggest he is not up to the position of mediator between God and the community (Harvey 108). The person who owns most of the land in the village disappears, Thomas Newman. This led the village to be open to being bought by a monastery looking to purchase more arable land. The archbishop also sends a stern dean to investigate Newman's disappearance and monitor Father Reve. In a literary foreshadowing of the English Reformation, the Dean disapproves of what he sees as non-English influences on the practice of Christianity in Oakham (Harvey 278). Father Reve tries to protect Oakham from both the monastery and the dean. The novel is told in reverse order, a notable technique to structure the novel. I believe the structure of the novel works. Harvey’s novel, The Western Wind, offers an intriguing view of a fictional priest trying to protect his village in late 15th-century England.