The Perfect Golden Circle

A BOSTON GLOBE BOOK OF THE YEAR

"An epic human tale that feels as if it was ripped from English folklore. One in which questions of friendship, creatiive expression, and the life purpose collde with modern British history. A must-read for every Anglophile."—Roger Bennett, Men in Blazers, author of (Re)Born in the USA

Summer 1989, deep in the English countryside — during a time of mass unemployment, class war, and rebellion . . . .
 
Over the course of a burning hot summer, two very different men — Calvert, an ex-soldier traumatized by his experience in the Falklands War, and his affable, off-the-grid friend Redbone — set out nightly in a decrepit camper van to undertake an extraordinary project, traversing the fields of rural England and creating crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns.  
 
And as the summer wears on, and their designs grow ever more ambitious, the two men find that their work has become a cult international sensation...
 
Moving and exhilarating, tender and slyly witty, The Perfect Golden Circle is a captivating novel about the futility of war, the descruction of the English countryside, class inequality — and the power of beauty to heal trauma and fight power. 

Benjamin Myers is a British former music journalist whose work appeared in leading publications including NME, Melody Maker, MOJO and Kerrang. He has since gone on to become one of the UK's leading novelists, with several award-winning books including The Gallows Pole, which won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction; The Offing, which was a Times (of London) and BBC Radio book of the year; and Pig Iron, which won the Gordon Burn Prize. He has also published poetry and short fiction, and has continued to write journalism for such publications as The Guardian, New Statesman, and New Scientist. He lives in England's Upper Calder Valley in West Yorkshire.