The brilliant new novel from the author of the award-winning FIVE RIVERS MET ON A WOODED PLAIN.` One of our most exciting young writers`
- The Times` Isn`t the life of any person made up out of the telling of two tales, after all? People live in the space between the realities of their lives & the hopes they have for them. The whole world makes more sense if you remember that everyone has two lives, their real lives & their dreams, both stories only a tape`s breadth apart from each other, impossibly divided, indivisibly close.` Every year, Robert`s family come together at a rambling old house to celebrate his birthday. Aunts, uncles, distant cousins
- it has been a milestone in their lives for decades. But this year Robert doesn`t want to be reminded of what has happened since they last met
- & neither, for quite different reasons, does his granddaughter Kate. Neither of them is sure they can face the party. But for both Robert & Kate, it may become the most important gathering of all. As lyrical & true to life as Norris`s critically acclaimed debut Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain, which won a Betty Trask Award & was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize & Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, this is a compelling, emotional story of family, human frailty, & the marks that love leaves on us.` Norris writes beautifully, unearthing extraordinary depths in the everyday... a memorable writer, mature beyond his years.` -Sunday Times` Norris has a gift for tapping in to ordinary lives & finding the extraordinary in them`
- Daily Mail