When the willfully unattached Iris Lockhart receives a call about a
great aunt she never met, her loner lifestyle gets woven into a
much larger family drama.Iris may harbor a secret forbidden
passion, but in her real-life affairs she prefers a detached
approach. Therefore, when a call comes from the soon-to-close
Cauldstone Hospital, asking what she would like to do with an
elderly relative she didn't know existed, she is faced with more
intimacy than she's comfortable with. Her great-aunt Esme,
mistakenly called "Euphemia" by the staff, has been hospitalized
for more than 60 years for various vague psychiatric disorders, at
one point it seems for simply not wanting her hair to be cut. After
Iris tries to place her, and recoils from the horrors of the
recommended halfway house, she takes her into her own flat, carved
out of the Scottish family's original grand home, on a trial basis.
Over the course of one long weekend, that trial reveals truths
about why Esme was hospitalized and why Iris never heard of her,
and also delves into Iris's fear of intimacy as her married lover,
Luke, teeters on the edge of leaving his wife. Relying on a complex
structure that recalls O'Farrell's earlier work (My Lover's Lover,
2003, etc.), most of the book's present action is focused on Iris's
day-to-day functioning. But this contemporary action is merely the
finale of a drama that's been going on since Esme's youth in India.
That story unfolds primarily through a series of inner monologues.
Esme enjoys rediscovering some memories but avoids others, while
her sister Kitty, now institutionalized with Alzheimer's, runs
through old mistakes and excuses that still haunt her in her
dementia. At times, these competing voices, each with a different
take on exactly what happened, can be confusing, but by the novel's
surprising ending, each has become clear. Despite occasional
opacity, this slow-building, impressionistic work amply rewards
dedicated readers with a moving human drama. (Kirkus Reviews)
From the bestselling, critically acclaimed author of HAMNET and I
AM, I AM, I AM, comes an intense, breathtakingly accomplished story
of a woman's life stolen, and reclaimed. 'Unputdownable' Ali Smith
Edinburgh in the 1930s. The Lennox family is having trouble with
its youngest daughter. Esme is outspoken, unconventional, and
repeatedly embarrasses them in polite society. Something will have
to be done. Years later, a young woman named Iris Lockhart receives
a letter informing her that she has a great-aunt in a psychiatric
unit who is about to be released. Iris has never heard of Esme
Lennox and the one person who should know more, her grandmother
Kitty, seems unable to answer Iris's questions. What could Esme
have done to warrant a lifetime in an institution? And how is it
possible for a person to be so completely erased from a family's
history?
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