An achingly poignant and touching read, and one that leaves you with a lingering wistful thoughtfulness as you turn the last page. Humans are abandoning and rats are taking over the small Scottish island of Eilean Fior, one guesthouse remains, clinging to life. Detailing four time periods between 1980 and 2002 the focus is on the McCloud family and their feelings of isolation, guilt, responsibility and in some cases, love for their home. The island, while the heart of the story, remains shyly in the background, this is very much a human tale about hidden emotions and feelings. The author has the ability to be extraordinarily expressive without an overflowing of descriptive detailing; he skilfully brings this family and their hopes and dreams to life. At times sorrowful and thought provoking, yet its core retains a beauty as this is a moving and eloquently emotional novel. ~ Liz Robinson
In 1980 the McCloud family welcomes Trevor, their third child and the last to be born on Eilean Fior, a small island off the west coast of Scotland. Life there, on the eve of Trevor's birth, is grim: the population, once in the hundreds, now hovers around thirty; his parents stubbornly maintain the family business, a guesthouse, despite their increasing trouble turning a profit; and a plague of rats threatens to wipe out the island's last remaining hopes. Against this backdrop, and through a series of interlocking narratives spanning from Trevor's birth to the present day, What Ends follows each of the McClouds as they navigate their ever-more fragile lives.
'This is no debut but a masterwork, an aborbing micro-saga whose completion we mourn.' Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn
'Each of the McClouds is rendered with a vivid complexity and it is that vividness which makes What Ends so truly suspenseful and so deeply satisfying. And surely every reader will want to visit Eilean Fior; happily we can in these beautiful pages. A sparkling and eloquent debut.' Margot Livesey
'Andrew Ladd draws the reader into their outwardly small lives to show layer after layer of complexity... a heady read' Daily Mail
'Impressive... Ladd's writing [is] precise in its descriptions of landscape and unspoken emotion... beautifully handled' Sunday Telegraph
'Ladd's prose is simple, lyrical, given free rein to explore a family saga that feels a lot fuller than might be expected from a 250-page novel... touching and precise' The Skinny
'What Ends is about the ambiguity of the bonds that relate us to people and places and bring meaning to our lives... Andrew Ladd's success lies in how he induces the reader to relate to these moments of quiet beauty in the same way we relate to them in life' TLS
Author
About Andrew Ladd
Andrew Ladd is the blog editor for pshares.org and his work has appeared in Apalachee Review, Memoir Journal and Rumpus.net, among others. He grew up in Edinburgh and has since lived in Boston, Montreal and New York. He currently lives in London. What Ends is his first novel.
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