The Gamekeeper

February 28, 2022
Originally published in 1975, this sturdy effort from the late English author and footballer Hines (A Kestrel for a Knave) weds the midcentury working-class novel with essayistic depictions of the natural world. In the north of England, former steelworker George Purse is a gamekeeper on a vast estate, where he lives with his wife and two young sons. His job is to help propagate, nurture, and protect the estate’s pheasant population so that his lord and master, the Duke, can shoot them for sport. Over the course of a year, the reader observes George dealing with crows, foxes, and jackdaws, as well as poachers and trespassers. Though there is very little plot, a climax emerges from an extended sequence about the Duke’s shooting party, for which George organizes the beaters who drive the helpless pheasants into the sights of the hunters. But what reads at times like an instruction manual for being a gamekeeper slyly evolves into implied criticism of the power imbalance between working-class George and the aristocratic Duke. Hines (1939–2016) skillfully writes in the tradition of such North England writers as Alan Sillitoe and Keith Waterhouse. This offers a convincing take on the strictures of class.