It is the freakishly hot, drought summer of 1921; dust storms in London, parched and cracking earth, autumn tints in July. Holed up in a cottage in the Chilterns, a young writer strives to write the first great novel of the War, impelled by his own suffering. Outward events and inner crises deflect him from his purpose, and love intervenes in the form of two very different women. A visit to the hallucinatory wreckage of post-war Flanders brings strange repercussions in its wake. Everyone is in some way damaged by the terrible years of the war; in what sense can art be made out of such horror?

Author Biography

Adam Thorpe was born in Paris in 1956. His irst novel, Ulverton, was published in 1992, nd he has written nine others, two collections f stories and six books of poetry. His new ranslations of Madame Bovary and Ther se i>Raquin have recently been published by Vintage. www.adamthorpe.net