{"product_id":"the-dig-isbn-9781590517802","title":"The Dig","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHE BASIS FOR THE NETFLIX FILM STARRING CAREY MULLIGAN, RALPH FIENNES, AND LILY JAMES \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA literary adventure that tells the story of a priceless buried treasure discovered in England on the eve of World War II\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the long, hot summer of 1939, Britain is preparing for war, but on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind. Mrs. Pretty, the widowed owner of the farm, has had her hunch confirmed that the mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As the dig proceeds, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary find.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis fictional recreation of the famed Sutton Hoo dig follows three months of intense activity when locals fought outsiders, professionals thwarted amateurs, and love and rivalry flourished in equal measure. As the war looms ever closer, engraved gold peeks through the soil, and each character searches for answers in the buried treasure. Their threads of love, loss, and aspiration weave a common awareness of the past as something that can never truly be left behind.“All the elements are here for a corking adventure yarn, perhaps in the style of Howard Carter’s account of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, which we see Mrs. Pretty reading. Yet despite the fact that most of the characters are real people…the novel’s interests are psychological rather than factual. Even as marvels are uncovered, an insistent strain of melancholy blows through these pages…The ambient dread is partly due to the gathering storm of World War II…But the apprehension is also metaphysical, connected to the fact that the archaeologists are not digging for buried treasure so much as disturbing a grave. Mr. Preston delicately portrays the effect the specters of mortality and decay have on each narrator. As it brushes away the soil from the remarkable ship, \u003ci\u003eThe Dig\u003c\/i\u003e stages understated excavations of marriage (both Basil’s and Peggy’s) and parenthood (Mrs. Pretty, who became a mother at 47, fears she won’t live to see her son grown up). Thus Mr. Preston creates an intriguing and ultimately moving concoction, a true-life chronicle that delves into secrets of the heart.” —\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Shimmers with longing and regret…Preston writes with economical grace…He has written a kind of universal chamber piece, small in detail, beautifully made and liable to linger on in the heart and the mind. It is something utterly unfamiliar, and quite wonderful.” \u003ci\u003e—New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A timeless tale of ancient English treasure…Beautifully understated.” \u003ci\u003e—Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“As homey at times as chamomile tea but spiked with pointed undercurrents, this is a real treat for a reader who can appreciate its quiet pleasures.” \u003ci\u003e—Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A very fine, engrossing, and exquisitely original novel.” —Ian McEwan, author of \u003ci\u003eAtonement\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wistful and poignant. A masterpiece in Chekhovian understatement.” —\u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An enthralling story of love and loss, a real literary treasure. One of the most original novels of the year.” —Robert Harris, author of \u003ci\u003eAn Officer and a Spy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A moving tale of mortality and the passage of time…affecting…Preston is subtle but precise in his characterizations, and meticulous with period detail.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eThe Dig\u003c\/i\u003e offers both a vividly reimagined slice of history and a tantalizing rumination on what remains after we cease to exist.” —\u003ci\u003eBooklist \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Intensely human…[\u003ci\u003eThe Dig\u003c\/i\u003e] constantly reminds us, rediscovering the past is a deeply equivocal pursuit…Preston keeps an iron grip on the reader's attention…a wonderful, evocative book. From his simple tale of dirt, Preston has produced the finest gold.” \u003ci\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A rich vein of dry humor runs throughout.” —\u003ci\u003eEvening Standard \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Intriguing, tender and entertaining…easily Preston’s best.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Independent \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A delicate, quietly affecting human drama.” —\u003ci\u003eDaily Mail \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A moving novel that coheres wonderfully as it progresses.” —\u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A delicate evocation of a vanished era.” —\u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Beautifully written…there is a true and wonderful ending to the story.” —Bill Wyman, \u003ci\u003eMail on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Exciting, evocative and beautifully written…A treasure in itself.” —Griff Rhys Jones\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “So absorbing that I read right through lunchtime one day, and it's not often I miss a meal.” —Nigella Lawson\u003cb\u003eJohn Preston \u003c\/b\u003eis a former arts editor of the \u003ci\u003eSunday Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eEvening Standard\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eA Very English Scandal,\u003c\/i\u003e the basis of the Emmy Award–winning miniseries, and the novel \u003ci\u003eThe Dig\u003c\/i\u003e, the basis for the Netflix original film. He lives in London.\u003cb\u003ePROLOGUE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBasil Brown  14 JUNE 1939\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat evening I came back and worked on alone. The rectangle of darkened earth at the entrance to the burial chamber showed up quite clearly in front of me. I scraped away with the trowel and then I switched to the bodkin. It wasn’t long after starting that I came across this greenish band. It was running through the soil like a grass stain. At first, I thought my eyes were playing up. I had to blink a few times before I’d allow myself to believe it.\u003cbr\u003e With the pastry brush, I swept the earth away, taking off as much as I dared. I was worried that if I took any more away the whole thing might vanish completely. But far from disappearing, the green band showed up even more distinctly than before.\u003cbr\u003e Then, to the left of the first one, I found another green band. The color was a little duller than before — more speckled too — but still impossible to miss. I took these to be the remains of bronze hoops. Possibly belonging to a barrel, or some sort of wooden container. \u003cbr\u003eWhen I looked at my watch, I saw that it had already gone nine o’clock. I was astonished — I thought I’d been going for about fifteen minutes. The light was fading now. Even so, I was in a muck sweat. I kept having to wipe my forehead with my sleeve. I knew I was going to have to give up soon. But I couldn’t bear to stop. Not yet.\u003cbr\u003e I kept on brushing. More than anything else I wished I’d brought a torch and I cursed myself for not thinking of it before. Just when I had decided that there was no point carrying on, I came across something else. A piece of timber.\u003cbr\u003e To begin with, I assumed this must be the barrel, or what was left of the barrel. It wasn’t long, though, before I had second thoughts. The piece of timber was about the size of a large book. Like a ledger, or a church Bible. As far as I could tell, it was perfectly flat. In places, it was so decayed that even my pastry brush was too rough. All I could do was put my lips as close as possible and blow the earth away.\u003cbr\u003e In one place, though, it was quite solid. When I tapped the wood with my finger, it gave out a soft, hollow sound. In the top left-hand corner, I could make out what I thought was a knot. Peering at it more closely, I saw it was a small hole. A dry, papery smell rose from the ground. It caught in my nostrils as I sat staring at the piece of wood, and at the hole in particular.\u003cbr\u003e Then I did something shameful. Something I can never excuse, or properly explain. I pushed my finger through the hole. It went in quite easily — the timber fitted snugly round my knuckle. Beyond was a cavity. Although I couldn’t be sure, I felt the cavity to be a large one. There was a kind of emptiness around my finger, like an absence of air. \u003cbr\u003eI stayed where I was for several minutes. By now I could hardly see the wood in front of me, it was so dark. But still I sat there, not moving. And when at last I took my finger away, all the excitement I’d felt before vanished in an instant. In its place came a great wash of sadness. So strong it quite knocked me back.\u003cbr\u003e After I’d covered over the center of the ship with tarpaulins and secured the corners with stones, I set off for Sutton Hoo House. The gravel path ran pale and straight in front of me. On one side was a yew tree. I could see its silhouette looming up before me, its branches almost touching the ground. The sky was black as hogs.\u003cbr\u003e When I rang the back doorbell, I could feel the sweat, cold and drying, on my skin. Grateley answered the door. Although he’d taken off his collar, he still had his tail coat on.\u003cbr\u003e “Basil? What are you doing here?”\u003cbr\u003e “Would you tell Mrs. Pretty I need to see her?” I told him. “Now?” He swayed back in surprise. “Do you know what time it is? Mrs. Pretty will be preparing for bed.” “Even so, I need to see her.”\u003cbr\u003e Behind him, light bounced off the white tiles. Grateley gave me a look. Frowning mostly, although there might have been some sympathy in it.\u003cbr\u003e “I’m sorry, Basil,” he said. “You’ll just have to wait until morning.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eEdith Pretty APRIL–MAY 1939   \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There was a knock on the door. “Come in.”\u003cbr\u003e “Mr. Brown, ma’am,” said Grateley, and then stood aside to let him in.\u003cbr\u003e I am not sure quite what I had been expecting, but it was not this. My first impression was that everything about him was brown — dark brown. His skin was mahogany-colored. So were his clothes: a cotton tie, a tweed jacket with the top button fastened and what appeared to be a cardigan beneath. He was like a kipper in human form. It seemed absurd that his name should be Brown too.\u003cbr\u003e The only things about him that were not brown were his eyes. Gray, like two polished tacks, they gleamed with alertness. His hair stood up in tufts. He was holding an object in his left hand — brown, inevitably — mashed between his fingers. The other was jutting out in front of him.\u003cbr\u003e “Mrs. Pretty,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e “It was good of you to come, Mr. Brown.”\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“No, no, no . . .”\u003cbr\u003e His handshake was dry and firm.\u003cbr\u003e “Won’t you sit down?” I indicated the sofa.\u003cbr\u003e He did so, but only just, perching on the edge of the seat with his elbows on his knees. The brown object was still in his hand. My gaze was drawn to it. I thought — I am afraid I thought it might be an animal of some sort. Then I realized it was his cap. He must have seen me looking, because he unclenched his hand, placing the cap on the cushion beside him.\u003cbr\u003e “Mr. Brown, you have been recommended to me as someone who knows about soil. Suffolk soil. Mr. Reid Moir, the chairman of Ipswich Museum Committee, spoke highly of you.” He twisted slightly at the mention of Reid Moir, I thought, but nothing more than that. I remembered how Reid Moir had described him as being somewhat unorthodox in his methods. I remembered too how he had also referred to him as a local man, laying a good deal of stress on the word “local.” At the time his meaning had passed me by, but now I saw it clearly enough.\u003cbr\u003e “As you may know,” I went on, “I have a number of mounds on my land. I have been thinking for some time of having them excavated. Mr. Reid Moir told me that you might be the man for the job.”\u003cbr\u003e There was no reaction — not at first. Then he said, “What do you think might be in your mounds, Mrs. Pretty?”\u003cbr\u003e His accent was broad Suffolk, with scarcely any vowels coming through and the consonants all clattering into one another. \u003cbr\u003e“I am assuming they are prehistoric. Probably Bronze Age. As for what, if anything, may be inside, I would not care to speculate. From what I can tell, they do not appear to have been excavated before. It is rumored that Henry VII dug for treasure in a mound here. We also know that John Dee, Elizabeth I’s Court Astrologer, was commissioned to search for treasure along this stretch of coast. Some people say he came here too, although there is no evidence of his having done so.”\u003cbr\u003e Again he said nothing. Despite his clothes, there was something oddly spruce about him. Possibly it was his air of containment.\u003cbr\u003e “Would you care to have a look for yourself?” I suggested.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Outside, the landscape was drained of color. The water in the estuary looked hard and shiny. It might not have been moving at all. Underfoot, the grass was spongy and already damp with dew. I was careful where to put my feet. Mr. Brown walked with his arms bowed and his elbows sticking out, as if his jacket was too small.\u003cbr\u003e “This whole area around Sutton Hoo House has always been known as Little Egypt,” I told him. “No doubt on account of the mounds. There are a number of legends about them. People claim to have seen mysterious figures dancing in the moonlight. Even a white horse. I believe that local girls used to lie down on top of them in the hope of becoming pregnant.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eMr. Brown glanced across at me, his eyebrows rising in two perfectly inverted Vs. “And have you ever seen any of these dancing figures yourself, Mrs. Pretty?” he asked. \u003cbr\u003e“No,” I said, laughing. “Never.”\u003cbr\u003e A coverlet of mist was clinging to the mounds. When we came closer to the largest of them, Mr. Brown made a little clicking sound with his tongue. “They’re bigger than I expected. Much bigger.”\u003cbr\u003e He pointed upwards. “May I?” “By all means.”\u003cbr\u003e He ran up the side of the mound, elbows pumping away. When he reached the top, he stood looking round. Then he promptly disappeared. After a few seconds, I realized that he must have knelt down behind a clump of bracken. Then he straightened up and stamped on the ground — first with one foot, then the other. He stayed up on the mound for several more minutes. When he came back down he was shaking his head.\u003cbr\u003e “What is it, Mr. Brown?”\u003cbr\u003e “You have rabbits, Mrs. Pretty.” “Yes, I am aware of that.”\u003cbr\u003e “Rabbits burrow,” he said. “They’re bad for excavations.\u003cbr\u003e Very bad. They disturb the soil.” “Ah, I didn’t realize.”\u003cbr\u003e “Oh yes, a real menace, rabbits are.”\u003cbr\u003e After that we went round each mound in turn. Mr. Brown paced out measurements, making notes with a stub of pencil in an old diary. At one point a flock of geese went overhead, their necks extended, their wings thumping the air. As he lifted his head to follow them, I saw the sharpness of his profile against the sky. \u003cbr\u003eBy the time we had finished the dusk was thickening. Boats were still coming back up the river to Woodbridge, their lanterns lit and their motors chugging. On the slipway, voices were shouting to one another, although only these shreds of sound were audible, not the words.\u003cbr\u003e Back in the sitting room, his hand reached for his jacket pocket. Then it stopped short, hovering above the flap.\u003cbr\u003e “Do feel free to smoke, Mr. Brown.” “It’s a pipe,” he said by way of warning. “That’s all right. I don’t mind a pipe.”\u003cbr\u003e He took the pipe out of his pocket, along with a pouch  of tobacco. Once he had filled the bowl he lit the tobacco, then pushed it down with his thumb — the tip was completely black. A low, bubbling sound emerged from the interior of the pipe. When he sucked on it, something extraordinary happened: his entire face collapsed. The insides of his cheeks must have almost touched in the middle. When he exhaled, his face inflated again.\u003cbr\u003e “Be a big job,” he said, shaking out the match.\u003cbr\u003e “I could let you have one man,” I said, thinking of John Jacobs, the under-gardener. “Possibly two.”\u003cbr\u003e “Two would be better. And scuppits.” “Scuppits?”\u003cbr\u003e “Shovels.”\u003cbr\u003e “I think we could probably run to shovels.” \u003cbr\u003eA cloud of blue smoke rose and settled above his head. “Mrs. Pretty,” he said, “I must be frank with you. These mounds of yours have almost certainly been robbed. Most of the ones around here were emptied in the seventeenth century. I wouldn’t want you getting your hopes up.”\u003cbr\u003e “But would you be willing to try?”\u003cbr\u003e “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would . . . That’s assuming the details could be agreed.”\u003cbr\u003e “The details, of course. You could lodge with the Lyonses. Mr. Lyons is my chauffeur and Mrs. Lyons is in charge of the kitchen. There is a spare bedroom in their quarters above the garage. As for money, would one pound, twelve shillings and sixpence a week be acceptable?”\u003cbr\u003e He nodded, almost brusquely.\u003cbr\u003e “I will arrange for you to be paid each week through the cashier at Footman Pretty’s store in Ipswich. Should you need money for incidental expenses, please let me know. If I am not here my butler, Mr. Grateley, can always pass on any messages. Now then, how long do you think you will need?”\u003cbr\u003e “Four or five weeks should do it. Six at a push.” “That long?”\u003cbr\u003e “I’ll go as fast as I can, Mrs. Pretty. But you can’t rush something like this.”\u003cbr\u003e “No, I understand. My only concern is that we might not have that much time.”\u003cbr\u003e “Best not hang about, then.”\u003cbr\u003e “No, indeed. When do you think you could start? Would next Monday be too soon?” “I don’t believe it would, no.”\u003cbr\u003e The door burst open and Robert ran in. He came towards my chair, then stopped in the middle of the carpet.\u003cbr\u003e “Ugh! What’s that disgusting smell, Mama? Has the silage caught fire again?”\u003cbr\u003e “Robbie,” I said, “this is Mr. Brown.”\u003cbr\u003e Mr. Brown had stood up. His head came through the smoke cloud.\u003cbr\u003e “This is my son, Robert,” I said, standing up myself.\u003cbr\u003e I could sense Mr. Brown’s surprise as his eyes went back and forth, from one of us to the other. A flicker of puzzlement before propriety took over.\u003cbr\u003e “Hello there, young man.”\u003cbr\u003e Robert said nothing; he just kept staring up at him.\u003cbr\u003e “Mr. Brown is an archaeologist,” I explained. “He is going to have a look inside the mounds.”\u003cbr\u003e Robert turned back to face me. “Inside the mounds? What for?”\u003cbr\u003e My hands were on his shoulders. As he moved, I could feel the bones shifting beneath his skin.\u003cbr\u003e “For treasure,” I said.","brand":"Other Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303536185573,"sku":"NP9781590517802","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590517802.jpg?v=1767739020","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-dig-isbn-9781590517802","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}