It is 1958 and the Sputnik satellite has taken a dog
up into space; back on earth, five-year-old Andy has a
new sister, Elaine - a baby who, his father insists, is
'not quite all there'. While his parents argue over
whether or not to send Elaine away, Andy sleeps beside
her cot each night, keeping guard and watching as his
mother - once an ambitious, energetic nurse - twists
away into her private, suffocating sadness. Knots keep
treasures safe, Andy's rope-maker grandfather tells him,
and, as he listens to stories of the great Harry
Houdini, Andy learns the Carrick Bend, the Midshipman's
Hitch and the Monkey's Fist. Then a young painter, hired
to decorate the family's house, seems to call Andy's
mother back from the grief in which she is lost. But one
day, at The Siding - the old railway carriage that
serves as the family's seaside retreat - Andy is left in
charge of his baby sister on a wind-chopped beach, where
he discovers that not all treasures can be kept safe for
ever. Three decades later Andrew returns from
self-imposed exile to The Siding, the place where his
life first unravelled.Looking back on the broken strands
of his childhood, he tries, at last, to weave them
together, aided by his grandfather's copy of The Ashley
Book of Knots and the arrival of a wild-haired,
tango-dancing sculptor - a woman with her own ideas
about making peace with the past. LONGLISTED FOR THE
INTERNATIONAL IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2011 |
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