Sara Baume: Seven Steeples

The mountain remained, unclimbed, for the first year that they lived there.

Seven Steeples is the story of Bell and Sigh, a couple in the infancy of their relationship, who cut themselves off from friends and family. Them in and the world out. From the top of the nearby mountain, they are told, you can see seven standing stones, seven schools, and seven steeples. All you have to do is climb. Taking place in a remote house in the south-west of Ireland, this rich and vivid novel spans seven years and speaks to the times we live in, asking how we may withdraw, how better to live in the natural world, and how the choices made or avoided lead us home.

‘[Sara Baume] has the sensibility of a poet as well as an artist… (handiwork) embodies the same thoughtful originality and striking close ups of the natural world as her two novels. At its core, it’s a testament to the importance of the examined life.’ The Irish Independent