Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Selected in Best Reads of 2023 by The Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Harper’s Bazaar, New Statesman, Good Housekeeping and The New York Times
A Waterstones Book of the Year
The Bookseller Editor’s Choice
The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and Notable Book of the Year
Awarded a starred Kirkus review
After fifty years in the wilderness of London, Alice wants to live out her days in the land of her birth. Her children are divided on whether she stays or goes, and in the wake of their father’s death, the imagined stability of the family begins to fray. Meanwhile youngest daughter Melissa has never let go of a love she lost, and Michael in return, even within the sturdy walls of his marriage to Nicole, is haunted by the failed perfection of the past.
Set against the shadows of Grenfell and a country in turmoil, these ordinary people confront fundamental questions. How to raise our children? How to do right by our parents? And how, in the midst of everything, do we satisfy ourselves?