Thubron returns with what might be his masterpiece… Thubron’s prose shines a penetrating light on the nature of memory and being human. <b>Sublime</b>.
- Simon Humphreys, Mail on Sunday
<b>Intensely moving</b>
- Tim Martin, Sunday Telegraph
An engrossing, unsettling and brutally beautiful <b>masterpiece</b>.
- John Harding, Daily Mail
Each life story…is told with all this writer’s <b>irresistible </b>narrative gift
- Ursula K. Le Guin, Guardian
Medicine owes an equal debt of gratitude to him for evoking a journey through the brain with the same adventurous and beguiled spirit as he might a rainforest or ancient city… With the ease of a master craftsman he makes up new words…lovingly evokes the extraordinary places he has passed through… This <b>outstanding</b> novel confirms that there is nowhere Thubron fears to tread.
- Melissa Katsoulis, The Times
His calm, contemplative tone and his mastery of imagery…are on full display here.
- Edmund Gordon, Sunday Times
The novel impresses with its literary craft and ambition.
- Ian Thomson, Evening Standard
A deeply personal, characteristically ambitious book.
- John Preston, Daily Telegraph
A compelling, lyrical tale of how a single spark unravels seven entwined lives.
- Hannah Shaddock, Radio Times
Thubron has written a novel which is at once disturbing and consoling. It makes you both think and feel at the same time, which is perhaps what the best fiction does more surely than any other art form.
- Allan Massie, Spectator
It began with a spark...
A house is burning. Its six tenants include a failed priest, a naturalist, a neurosurgeon and a photographer. Their landlord's relationship to them is both intimate and shadowy. At times he shares their obsessions and memories. He will also share their fate.
The passions of these individuals reach beyond the dying house that holds them. One recalls a lonely childhood, another the cremation grounds of India, another an African refugee camp. But will their stories be consumed forever by the flames?
It began with a spark...
A house is burning. At times he shares their obsessions and memories. He will also share their fate.
The passions of these individuals reach beyond the dying house that holds them. One recalls a lonely childhood, another the cremation grounds of India, another an African refugee camp.