Helm by Sarah Hall audiobook review – fresh air from the Pennines | Fiction

The only mentioned the wind in the British Isles, Helm is a north-easterly gale that blows under the Cross Fell mountains in the Pennines and is known for its unusual cloud formations. Helm is known to remove roofs, grass, trees and riders from their horses.

Twenty years into writing, Sarah Hall’s Helm is an ambitious book that tells the story from the perspective of the wind, and from the people who, over the years, Helm has confused. These figures include a Neolithic and visionary woman named NaNay who is building a stone circle; an astrologer and exorcist called a “wizard priest”; a Victorian meteorologist who travels across the Pennines by train and later rides in a carriage to Helm’s “raid”; is a meteorologist measuring particles in the atmosphere from his waterfall observatory. Separated by hundreds of years, their stories are still woven together, each one relevant to the season.

Helm is a book with a lot of volume, rhythms and sharp changes in style and tone, which make it a difficult task for the narrator. Fortunately, the actress Louise Brealey – who has already read two of Hall’s books: The Wolf Border and Burntcoat – proves more than enough, laughing at her moments of play and poetry and enjoying the bright light.

Helm is a slippery, shape-shifting thing that Hall’s writing can be difficult to visualize and describe, though that doesn’t stop him from trying. “Imagine a skateboarder running down a 2,000-foot-long pipe, then taking a deep dive.” Again. Also.

Available via Faber, 13hr 3min

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