Jo Lennon

Well, I think Boyd's friends and his circle of

acquaintances is so well drawn and just so interesting to follow.

I quite enjoyed all of those elements.

But then once we skipped off to other characters, you know, there's a certain truck driver who becomes involved.

There are these extended sections that take place in Turkey and start to draw us into Kiki's past and what she might have been up to some years back.

So there's that moving across time as well.

All of these things felt quite involving to me when I got there.

Well, that's right.

And one of the things that was interesting

that struck me really from the beginning with this book was how real these characters felt.

And I think more than most novels, that was something that was quite striking to me.

And that's a really wonderful feature of this novel.

I think it helps to carry it, really.

There is this single central event, as you say, and structurally that absolutely...

brings them all together in what is ultimately a single plot.

So I think that's very important.

If we didn't have that, we might be a bit at sea.

And then thematically, there is this sense of Raina's search for some way to atone for this thing that has happened, to make amends and to go on in some way that feels right to her.

Well, it's beautifully done.

It's quite plain in some ways, you know, deceptively so, in this American tradition of the short story, perhaps the style that you see in, say, North American writers, the Alice Munro's.