Book description
> His parents Caroline and Andrew are devastated by the death of
their only child. The overwhelming love Caroline has always felt for her
son is now matched by the intensity of her loss, and as she is borne
away on a private ocean of grief the moorings of their marriage begin to
come loose.
The silence is broken by the arrival of Andrew's mother, Elsa, who at
the age of ninety-eight can no longer look after herself. Caroline has
never felt good enough for this elegant, cuttingly courteous lady and
has lived for years in fear of putting a foot wrong. Now, suddenly,
Caroline has the upper hand.
As Elsa lies, marooned and disorientated, in the spare room, the past
unspools in her mind, throwing up fragments of her anxious childhood in
1920s Richmond - under the shadow of her father, a soldier who came back
from the Great War a different man.
A stunning, delicate portrait of a family bookended by war, Home Fires
explores the legacy of loss, the strictures of class and the long road
to redemption.> > His parents Caroline and Andrew are devastated
by the death of their only child. The overwhelming love Caroline has
always felt for her son is now matched by the intensity of her loss, and
as she is borne away on a private ocean of grief the moorings of their
marriage begin to come loose.
The silence is broken by the arrival of Andrew's mother, Elsa, who at
the age of ninety-eight can no longer look after herself. Caroline has
never felt good enough for this elegant, cuttingly courteous lady and
has lived for years in fear of putting a foot wrong. Now, suddenly,
Caroline has the upper hand.
As Elsa lies, marooned and disorientated, in the spare room, the past
unspools in her mind, throwing up fragments of her anxious childhood in
1920s Richmond - under the shadow of her father, a soldier who came back
from the Great War a different man.
A stunning, delicate portrait of a family bookended by war, Home Fires
explores the legacy of loss, the strictures of class and the long road
to redemption.>
