Before she was a novelist, Sarah Winman was an actress, working across the British stage, film, and television industries for years before she ever put pen to page. It was only after enrolling in a writing course that she began to reimagine herself as an author, and the shift paid off almost immediately.
Her 2011 debut novel, “When God Was a Rabbit,” was met with widespread praise for a style that would come to define her: lyrical, patient, and populated by richly drawn characters. She also possesses a quiet narrative voice which holds a creative and emotional depth many writers spend their entire careers chasing.
That voice found an even wider audience with 2021’s “Still Life,” a sweeping, generous novel that became both a critical and commercial success, sending Winman’s reputation climbing further still.
With her star rising, it’s little surprise that her publisher has looked back across her catalog for other work asking for a fresh spotlight, landing, deservedly, on 2015’s “A Year of Marvelous Ways“ (originally published in the UK as ”A Year of Marvellous Ways").
Marvelous Characters
Like many of the best character studies, “A Year of Marvelous Ways” is a difficult novel to summarize. Just after WWII, the eccentrically named Marvellous Ways is nearing the end of her long life. An 89-year-old midwife, Marvellous lives alone in a gypsy caravan tucked beside a tidal creek in the fictional, dwindling Cornish hamlet of St. Ophere.“A village without men dies. … Those left behind prayed constantly for peace but prayers came back with Return to Sender stamped all over them. Only the roll call of the dead grew.”
Her existence is rustic and half-feral, half-mystical. She swims naked at every high tide and speaks to the dead as easily as the living. In the autumn of 1947, Marvellous receives a dream from an old flame, “Paper Jack,” telling her to wait for—well, something.
Whether Jack was ever real or just a figment of Marvellous’s imagination remains to be seen. But the “something” Jack foretells turns out to be someone, a young man named Francis Drake (no relation to the famous English sailor, though everyone kids him about it).
Francis has recently returned to England after the war. He’s hollowed out by what he witnessed and did in the war. Nothing pulls him homeward except a promise. In a field hospital in Normandy, Francis met a dying soldier, a total stranger. The soldier pressed a letter into his hands, asking him to deliver it to a doctor in Cornwall, the dying man’s father.
Stark Return
When he finally does return to London, he reconnects with Missy. An old flame, she’s also profoundly altered and damaged by the war. Their reunion is brief, gentle, and ultimately devastating, pushing Francis to the very edge of despair.It’s at this lowest point that he crosses paths with Marvellous. She recognizes at once that he’s the one she’s been waiting for. She draws him into her strange, tender world, and Francis, with nothing left to lose and no better option, lets her.
Lyrical and Tender
“A Year of Marvelous Ways” is, quite simply, a beautiful story told in a beautiful way by a genuinely gifted writer.Like most of her work, Winman’s prose here reads like lyric poetry stretched across narrative time. Her story unearths graceful moments of poignancy even from the depths of the horrors of war. She threads this needle again and again without ever cheapening the darker material she’s handling.
Perhaps what’s most impressive about Winman’s writing is what she resists. Despite its sentimental, life-affirming themes, the novel never tips into saccharine sentimentality or easy, trite resolutions.
Even in the moments that seem primed to curdle into the stuff of conventional romance novels, Winman finds an unexpected depth and restraint that keeps the story honest. Grief, war trauma, and loss sit alongside wonder and tenderness without ever feeling manipulative or convenient.
Marvellous herself is the novel’s great achievement: an unforgettable, singular creation, something like Caliban from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” if he'd been merged with a kindly grandmother. Strange, funny, wise, wounded, and entirely her own, she’s the kind of character built to stay with you long after the final page.
“A Year of Marvelous Ways” is exactly what its title promises: marvelous. For readers who missed it back in 2015, this new edition is the perfect excuse to finally make its acquaintance. For those who remember it fondly, it’s more than reason enough to return to St. Ophere, to the creek, and to Marvellous herself.
