This remarkable novel should have made it onto the Booker longlist. Daniel Mason cartwheels through 400 years of history housed within the walls of a single New England home in the woods. Each life, vividly realised, like lightning in a storm, is a form of haunting, subtly affecting those that come after like the changing of the seasons. But Mason also gives each scenario the succinct coherence of a short story, a genre at which he is particularly skilled. Mason’s cast includes scammers and lovers, dreamers and victims, while tragedy and madness stalk the pages, notably in the case of unforgettable twin sisters, one of whom burns with private jealousy of the other, and the story of Robert, a schizophrenic seen through the perspectives of his psychiatrist, mother and sister
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