Fiction

'For a long time after we had disappeared from each other’s lives, I couldn’t understand why it didn’t happen. Why we didn’t happen.' Ever since they met at university, where they were both studying environmental science, Erin has dreamed of a relationship with Dani S. And so when, five years since she last saw her, she discovers that Dani has been found dead in a Russian airport, Erin feels compelled to investigate, refusing to accept the official verdict that her friend committed suicide. As she is drawn into a world of environmental activists and the security services who track them, however, Erin finds herself having to confront the fact that she knows very little about her former friend. When she is eventually put in touch with a young Russian woman who appears to have been Dani's lover, the conflicts in Erin's own personality leave her having to reflect not just on the loss of her former friend but on the loss of her own sense of herself.

'If you believed in such a thing, I suppose you might have called it fate. And thus, as he would have said, did say, more than once, something to be loved. Always in Latin. Amor fati, Paul.' After a childhood in which his sensitivity to the suffering of others leads him to feel that he has been hollowed out, unable to make sense not just of his own life, but of human life as such, Paul heads off to university. There, he encounters a charismatic figure, Storm, as well as his half-sister, Mal. For Paul, it is as though he has finally found what he needed, as though Storm possesses the power to fill the void within him, persuading him that he can make his life meaningful through what his new friend describes as an aesthetic justification of his existence. The enigmatic Mal, however, seems to be warning Paul that Storm has taken him to be someone other than he is, while Paul has misinterpreted Storm's advice to him. When Storm disappears from his life, Paul sets out to become the person whom Storm believes him to be. It is a journey that will lead him into a darkness from which there appears to be no escape—a journey all the way to the end of the line.

'My memories of my mother are few and fragile. That is perhaps unsurprising, given that it is now almost fifty years since she died. I was eight at the time. Whenever I think of her, as I often do, even now, the two of us together, happy as only a mother and child can be happy, I am reminded of just how traversable the border is between memory and fantasy.' Gabriel Satterthwaite has lived much of his life in the shadow of his mother's apparent suicide by drowning, close to the family home, when he was eight years old. Ever since that traumatic event, he has found himself unable to establish lasting relationships or to pursue a career that would match up to his father’s expectations. When his father, now suffering from dementia, appears to confess to having murdered Gabriel's mother, the son embarks on a quest to discover what really happened to her all those years ago. That quest leads him to a small town in northern France, to Tel Aviv, to New York, and ultimately to a run-down seaside town in East Kent in search of a truth that will compel him to change not only his long-cherished image of his mother but also his sense of his own identity.

‘As surprising, perhaps even as unbelievable, as it might seem, the thought of recording these thirteen encounters under their present title occurred to me sometime before my own diagnosis.' Zyrisa is in her mid-thirties when she finds herself having to contemplate the prospect of her own death, following an unexpected health scare. She claims, however, that this is not the reason she had decided to record a series of encounters, some dating back to her childhood and all reflecting experiences of mortality. From a conversation on a transatlantic flight about a passenger's fear of flying, to a widow's seemingly inexplicable decision to sell her home, move into a luxury hotel, and purchase still-life paintings, to a music teacher who is convinced that she is training one of her pupils for her career in a next life, these encounters reveal the various ways in which our sense of our own mortality can shape our lives. These experiences lead us to behave in ways that can often seem incomprehensible but may also teach us something essential about our shared humanity.

Even as a child, Ella Rosen’s remarkable gift as a pianist is evident to all those who hear her play. Surely, she will go on to a career as a celebrated concert pianist. Then, as a teenager, she discovers the work of Clara Schumann and is overwhelmed by a profound sense of kinship with the composer, whose music was overshadowed by that of her husband, Robert. Clara, she learns, apparently came to believe that she possessed no creative talent of her own and that, therefore, she should devote her life to supporting her husband's career and to interpreting the works of others. Following the birth of her daughter, Ella's life takes a course that appears to be even more self-denying than that of her musical heroine. A single mother, working as a music teacher in the north of England, Ella leads the quietest of lives. When, in her mid-forties, she falls seriously ill, it would seem that her life will have passed all but unnoticed. By chance, she encounters another woman who has reached the conclusion that she, too, lacks any creative talent. As their friendship develops, however, and Ella comes to share her views on life and music with her new friend, a new light is cast both on the distinction between creative and interpretative talent, and on what constitutes a significant life.

'Once upon a time, there was a … Stories like this one don’t usually begin like that. But why not? After all, there’s something of the fairy tale about it. There’s a princess, a dark wood, and a monster. The only things missing are the hero and the happy ending.' With the birth of their child, Natalie, it seems that Julian's and Kate's life is complete. They soon discover, however, that their daughter possesses a remarkable gift, the ability not only to experience the thoughts and feelings of others, but to alleviate the suffering of those whom she describes as the lost ones. When that gift appears to be putting Natalie at risk of harm, her parents seek to intervene by consulting a child psychologist. But the reassurances that they receive prove to be short-lived, and when their family is torn apart by an horrific act of violence, the responsibility that they feel for what has happened leads them to act, albeit in very different ways. This is a novel about the nature of love, the risks to which it exposes us, and where, if anywhere, meaning might be sought after the most traumatic experience of loss.

'It’s Cara, yes? Please, make yourself comfortable.' So begins the relationship between psychotherapist Rachel Frieling and her new patient, Cara Dimanovska, an intellectually brilliant twenty-five-year-old who, having abandoned her doctoral studies on the philosopher and religious thinker Simone Weil, has recently attempted suicide. The life story that Cara slowly reveals to her therapist has been shaped by violence and loss, and by an increasingly desperate struggle to make sense of her suffering in a purely intellectual way. As her initial hostility towards her therapist gives way to intimacy and trust—prompted in part by the revelation that Rachel, too, has suffered traumatizing loss—Cara convinces herself that she has managed to reconnect with her long-buried true self. That belief is reinforced when she meets Zaid, a man who seems to offer her hope of a new life. Her therapist sees things differently, however, and tries to warn Cara that she is still at risk of relapsing into her former self-hatred. For both therapist and patient, the challenge becomes how to navigate a way forward through their shared experiences of suffering.

‘If this is a confession, and I can find no less misleading word for it, then it is a confession of love, not hate. I’m not trying to justify what I felt, what I did, or even what I didn’t do. It’s too late for that. I’m not seeking forgiveness either. It’s too late for that, too. What, then? I don’t know. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Perhaps I’ll know when it’s over. That won’t be long.' As a child, Chrissie never felt loved by her parents, and as a teenager, she came to believe that she possessed what she could only describe as a bad mentality. When she meets the auratic Cassie at a party during her second year at university, however, Chrissie experiences a sexual and intellectual awakening that promises to transform her sense of herself. And yet, she soon begins to doubt Cassie's affection for her. When Cassie disappears, the traumatized Chrissie is left to try to rebuild her life in Hamburg. But her attempt to leave the past behind her is thrown into disarray when, years later, she discovers that Cassie appears to have exploited their relationship for her own ends. Feeling compelled to seek some kind of retribution for this perceived act of betrayal, Chrissie sets in motion a series of actions that soon spiral out of control, with devastating consequences.