About the Book
A profound
debut novel that explores complicated love, secrets, and familial
misunderstandings from the celebrated octogenarian author of the
"trail-blazing" (Oprah Daily) collection Cat Brushing
It's the week
of Dr. Agnes Stacey's only daughter's wedding, and each of the eleven attendees
of the small family gathering is bringing their own simmering tensions to the
event. Agnes' uncle, Professor Malcolm
Miller, has harbored a family secret since her parents - his sister and brother
in law - died in a car crash when she was a young girl. Dr. Joseph Bradshaw,
who distantly married into the family, has nursed a secret obsession with Agnes
since his brief stint as her therapist. Agnes herself will be returning to her
ex-husband's home for the first time, just as she's trying to extricate herself
from a potent love affair. Each of them
has the tools to analyze the love lives of others, yet find themselves unable to
recognize the love in their own lives. And though they've each muddled through
painful years in emotional isolation, only Malcolm knows that the origins of
their thwarted attachments all lie in the same English seaside town. Where
better to lay bare the failures and secrets of one's advancing age than at an
intimate celebration of love?
In this incisive
and involving debut novel, Campbell parses the fraught inner lives of ordinary
people doing their best to process the aftershocks of war, the parenting they
do and don't receive, and the many different forms love can take in one family.
