Synopses & Reviews
In 1946, into a suspicious and isolated community comes James Mercer, employed in the demolition of gun platforms. He befriends the wife and daughter of Lynch, a soldier soon to be released from the military. Lynch's return threatens violence; and in a place where nothing has changed for decades, where peacetime feels no different than wartime, Mercer finds himself powerless to prevent events quickening to their violent and unexpected conclusion.
Review
“A novel of ambition and skill, at once a historical meditation, an evocation of a disintegrating society, and, perhaps most strikingly, a family melodrama.” —The New Statesman
About the Author
Robert Edric's novels include
Winter Garden (James Tait Black Prize-winner),
A New Ice Age (1986 runner-up for the Guardian Fiction Prize),
A Lundar Eclipse,
The Earth Made of Glass,
Elysium,
In Desolate Heaven,
The Sword Cabinet,
The Book of the Heathen (shortlisted for the 2001 WH Smith Literary Award).
From the Hardcover edition.