Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier, reviewed by Eva Leung

Hungry Hill UK 1st edition

The UK first edition, hardback of Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier

Genre: Contemporary fiction, Fictionalised family saga, historical fiction
Time Span: 1820 ~ 1920
Original Publication: 1943

When “Copper John” Brodrick, the patriarch of the Brodrick family, inherits Clonmere Castle at Hungry Hill, he decides to develop the copper mines there. The Donovans, a rival family who has always claimed ownership of the land, opposes it and lays a curse on the Brodricks:

I tell you your mine will be in ruins, and your house destroyed, and your children forgotten and fallen maybe into disgrace, but this hill will be standing still to confound you […], and may your wealth bring [your descendants] nothing but despair and desolation and evil, until the last of them stands humble and ashamed amongst the ruins of it, with the Donovans back again in Clonmere on the land that belongs to them.

Thus begins the tale of how five generations of the Brodrick family struggle to survive what would be known as the Donovan curse.

Based on the Irish ancestors of Christopher Puxley, the author’s friend and lover during the war, Hungry Hill is intended as a study in heredity. The first time I read the novel, I was too young to understand the curse and the significance of the events that unfolded. However, rereading it as an adult, I took in the full blast of its power, not only of what happens to the generations of Brodrick heirs but also the dramatic turn of events in the Epilogue, together with its innovative, experimental narrative form – so much that I had a huge book hangover after reading it, yearning for more.

Yet, with this as a lesser-known work by du Maurier, there have been very few analyses and reviews. The movie adaptation, which seems to end midway through the narrative, totally does not do justice to the brilliance of the novel, and I feel that it seems to have totally missed the point of the Donovan curse. Hungry Hill is a severely underrated novel with depth, and I find it a much more rewarding read than most of the recent bestsellers.

‹‹ Back