The Dig: A Novel Based on True Events

By John Preston

Book Overview

The extraordinary novel behind the BAFTA-nominated Netflix film starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan.

"A delicate, beautifully written novel about the fragility of life." --The Guardian

In the sweltering summer of 1939, as Britain braces for war, widowed landowner Edith Pretty hires self-taught local archaeologist Basil Brown to excavate the mysterious barrows on her Suffolk estate. What they unearth is monumental: a magnificent sixth-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial, untouched for centuries and brimming with royal gold.

When the news leaks out, Cambridge academics and British Museum officials descend on the farm, triggering a bitter power struggle between local intuition and institutional authority over who gets to claim history. Set against the looming threat of global conflict, The Dig captures a fragile, transient moment where the ancient past and an uncertain future collide.

Understated, intensely atmospheric, and deeply moving, John Preston's acclaimed novel is a masterwork on class, mortality, and what we leave behind.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590517806
• ISBN13: 9781590517802
• Release Date: April 2016
• Publisher: Other Press (NY)
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Was hoping for more.

There were things I did enjoy about the book, like the author’s writing style. But I was hoping for so much more detail into the archaeological digs, what was found, and what was going on around the characters. It would have been more interesting to learn more about what they were uncovering, what that meant, and why it was significant, especially with World War II going on. Everything felt sort of superficial and surface level.