From the winner of the 2004 Whitbread First novel award comes a beautifully written novel about love, about trust, loss and loneliness with a profound darkness at its core. The story unfolds at the bedside of a girl in a coma, as her sister confesses to her past selfishness, her bitterness and her anger and savagery towards her family and most of all towards her sister. Fletcher’s writing is wonderfully lyrical and beguiling, and an utter joy to read despite the sadness and bitterness of the story.
Amy lies in a coma. Her older sister, Moira, comes to her in the evenings, sits beside her in a green-walled hospital room. Here, Moira confesses. She admits to her childhood selfishness which deeply hurt her family and to the self-imposed exile from the dramatic Welsh coast that had dominated and captivated her childhood; to her savagery at boarding school; to the wild, bitter and destructive heart that she carried into her adult life. Moira knows this: that she's been a poor daughter, and a deceptive wife. But it is as Amy lies half-dying that she sees the real truth: she's been a cruel sister, and it is this cruelty that has led them both here, to this hospital bed.
Susan Fletcher was our Guest Editor in March 2010 - click here - to see the books that inspired her writing.
Susan Fletcher was born in 1979 in Birmingham. She studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and lives in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her first novel, Eve Green won the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Betty Trask Prize and Author's Club Best First Novel Award. Her second novel Oystercatchers was published in 2007 to great acclaim.
