Ondaatje's (The Cat's Table, 2011) gorgeous, spellbinding prose is precise and lustrous, witty, and tender. Evidence slowly accrues suggesting that Nathaniel and Rachel's mother, Rose, may be with British intelligence. Even Nathaniel's first sexual relationship is illicit, as the young lovers meet in empty houses, thanks to her real-estate agent brother. Nathaniel is certain that the Moth and his curious friends, especially the former boxer known as the Darter, are criminals, and, indeed, he is soon caught up in strange and dangerous undertakings involving barges on the Thames at night and clandestine deliveries. *Starred Review* The smoke has yet to clear in war-battered 1945 London when Nathaniel, 14, and his sister, Rachel, 16, are left in the care of a man they call the Moth, about whom they know nearly nothing. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. Mesmerizing from the first sentence, rife with poignant insights and satisfying subplots, this novel about secrets and loss may be Ondaatje's best work yet. The central irony is Nathaniel's eventual realization that his mother's heroic acts of patriotism during and after the war left lasting repercussions that fractured their family. The story reads like a nontraditional and fascinating coming-of-age saga until a violent event occurs midway through the resulting shocking revelations open the novel's second half to more surprises. His friend, a former boxer nicknamed the Pimlico Darter, is also a kindly guide, albeit one engaged in illegal enterprises in which he enlists Nathaniel's help. Her betrayal destroys their innocence they learn to accept that "nothing was safe anymore." To the siblings' surprise, however, their designated guardian, their upstairs lodger, whom they call the Moth, turns out to be a kind and protective mentor. The narrator, Nathaniel Williams, looks back at the year 1945, when he was 14 and "our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals." Nathaniel and his older sister, Rachel, are stunned to discover that their mother's purported reason for leaving them was false. The word aptly describes the atmosphere of this haunting, brilliant novel from Ondaatje (The Cat's Table), set in Britain in the decades after WWII, in which manysignificant facts are purposely shrouded in the semidarkness of history. The term warlight was used to describe the dimmed lights that guided emergency traffic during London's wartime blackouts. I haven't read a better novel this year.' Telegraph Author Notes 'Ondaatje brilliantly threads the mysteries and disguises and tangled loyalties and personal yearnings of the secret world.and has constructed something of real emotional and psychological heft, delicate melancholy and yet, frequently, page-turning plottiness. 'Fiction as rich, as beautiful, as melancholy as life itself, written in the visionary language of memory' Observer 'A novel of shadowy brilliance' The Times
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Nathaniel is introduced to The Moth's band of criminal misfits and is caught up in a series of teenage misadventures, from smuggling greyhounds for illegal dog racing to lovers' trysts in abandoned buildings at night.īut is this eccentric crew really what and who they claim to be? And most importantly, what happened to Nathaniel's mother? Was her purported reason for leaving true? What secrets did she hide in her past? Years later Nathaniel, now an adult, begins to slowly piece together using the files of intelligence agencies - and through reality, recollection and imagination - the startling truths of puzzles formed decades earlier. 14-year-old Nathaniel and his older sister Rachel are abandoned by their parents who leave the country on business, and are left in the dubious care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. The capital is still reeling from the war. ** FINALIST FOR THE 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE**Īn elegiac, dreamlike novel set in post-WW2 London about memory, family secrets and lies, from the internationally acclaimed author of The English Patient **LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018** 'Our book of the year - and maybe of Ondaatje's career' Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
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