The Method of Story-Telling in Waterland

Waterland, published in 1983, is a complex tale set in eastern England’s low-lying Fens region like the New Wessex. It is the third novel of Graham Swift. It is narrated by Tom Crick, a middle aged history teacher. Tom is facing a personal crisis because he is about to be laid off from his job and his wife has been admitted to a mental hospital. He is a man who is keenly interested in ideas about the nature and purpose of history. Faced with a class of bored and rebellious students, he scraps the traditional curriculum of history and tells them stories of the Fens instead. In the words of Tom.