Michaela Saunders

Don't read the back cover when you pick this book up.

There is a betrayal in this book that if we say anything much more than that, you'll understand it too early.

You need to not know this when you pick it up.

So we meet.

The older Lawrence, who is a bit of an outsider, I think, he's fallen deeply into reclusiveness.

His only true solace is art and the very small communication he has with his brother Paul.

Yes, and still maintains this resonance and livingness that is beyond human, beyond something of this earth.

There's a special power that is given to that part of the landscape by Lawrence, I think, and also Sophie Laguna.

You know, just something extraordinary happened to me when I stopped reading this and came back to it and picked it up again.

I went, oh, when did this go into the first person?

The whole book had been in the first person.

And I went, oh, of course it has been.

But what it showed me, that little surprise, was how cleverly and with what great skill Sophie Laguna has put the voice of Lawrence, because that's whose voice we hear this story through, into the narrative context.

So gently and with such, what is it that I'm trying to say?

We're given so many fine details and observations, but it never feels jarring.

They're almost seamless, the narrator and the author.

It's wonderfully well done, that part of it.

Yes, and unlike other books that we've read recently, it is very easy to read this book purely in terms of the prose.

It's beautifully written.

It's very open.