Overview
- Land, O’Farrell’s tenth novel, was published in early June and opens in 1865 with Tomás, an Irish mapmaker working for the British Ordnance Survey on a windswept peninsula.
- The story tracks Tomás’s family across generations, using mapmaking and landscape as metaphors to examine colonial violence, famine aftershocks, migration and inherited trauma.
- Critics have largely praised the book’s lyricism, scope and character work, with several reviews calling it among O’Farrell’s major achievements.
- Some reviewers issued mixed assessments, specifically noting slow pacing in parts and an opaque mystical or mythic element tied to a sacred spring that they found unclear or distracting.
- Commentators link Land to O’Farrell’s family history (her great‑great‑grandfather worked for the Ordnance Survey) and to the cinematic expectations raised by Hamnet’s Oscar‑winning film adaptation, increasing talk of Land’s screen potential.