To Calais, In Ordinary Time

"Contemporary resonances are always a plus in historical novels. But, quite apart from timeliness, James Meek has quite simply given us something technically ambitious and glorious to read. I found myself smiling and occasionally doing that strange British thing of shaking my head in admiration. It’s punchy stuff! For some readers, the language may be challenging, so I wouldn’t start reading To Calais in bed. Instead, sit, and once comfortably immersed in the novel, lean back and stretch out. Open wine. Perhaps light a candle. Keep a handkerchief handy. I suppose because To Calais isn’t written in the neutral English employed by most modern historical novelists— i.e. mainly current grammatical constructions, except in direct speech, with words from the time that are easily translatable, for example ‘chamber’ for room or ‘coney’ for rabbit. Digging into the Oxford English Dictionary, James Meek has fashioned a language both familiar and unfamiliar, in other words a language that without losing subtlety or nuance sounds ‘fourteenth century’. But readers shouldn’t be alarmed. Two pages in and you’re fluent."

"Some lowlife archers, a cleric, a gender-fluid pigkeeper, a dumb-but-hot peasant and a wronged noblewoman head to France and smack into the Black Death. James Meek gives both merciless pandemic Real Talk and a sort of Lonely Planet guide to medieval England. Master local lingo like gnof (lout), freke (brave man) and how to ask for the nearest confessor! Visit the hippest reliqueries, jousts and sickhouses! Learn which villages to avoid but blunder into anyway because you believe the plague is a hoax perpetrated by priests! And think deep thoughts about human responses to incoming doom, no matter the era."