A Country Road, A Tree

Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Memorial Prize for Historical Fiction

By: Jo Baker

Narrated by: David Rintoul

BY THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LONGBOURN

Paris, 1939: The pavement rumbles with the footfall of Nazi soldiers marching along the Champs Elysees. A young writer, recently arrived from Ireland to make his mark, smokes one last cigarette with his lover before the city they know is torn apart. Soon, he will put is own life and those of his loved ones in mortal danger by joining the Resistance...

Spies, artists, deprivation, danger and passion: this is a story of life at the edges of human experience, and of how one man came to translate it all into art.

Praise for Jo Baker's LONGBOURN:
'Intoxicating' Guardian
'Engrossing' Sunday Times
'Audacious' New York Times

Critic reviews

Skilful . . . daring . . . an extraordinary story

[It is] the unexpected Beckett that is on show here. Baker pays tribute to a man who joined the French Resistance, narrowly escaped the Gestapo, fled south on foot and went into hiding, and was eventually awarded the Croix de Guerre

A fascinating fictional account of Samuel Beckett's wartime years

Beautifully written, empathetic and unflinching, it is very, very good

vivid and well-wrought

Insightful . . . beautifully paced . . . authentic

In this worthy successor to Longbourn, she [Baker] skillfully captures Beckett’s world, the rhythms of his bare-bones prose, and the edginess of his point of view.

Taking its title from Beckett's most famous play, Waiting for Godot, Baker's historical drama deftly explores the psyche of one of the greatest writers of the Twentieth Century.

Perfectly captures the deprivation, despair and constant creeping fear of an occupied people.

This exquisitely crafted novel re-creates the World War II peregrinations of Samuel Beckett and the volatile Frenchwoman who became his life's companion