Johnny, an outstanding young swimmer, went missing nearly thirty years ago: drowned, or so everyone except his sister Imogen believes. How could this have happened? Encouraged, pushed even, from a child by his father, Johnny could have made the Olympic team, couldn't he? As Imogen gradually pieces together bits of her family history, we hear the tragic echoes that connect her with the Great War and Ireland in the nineteen-twenties.

'Subtle, moving and beautifully constructed' The Sunday Times

About the Author
Jennifer Johnston is one of the foremost Irish writers of her, or any generation. She has won the Whitbread Prize (THE OLD JEST), the Evening Standard Best First Novel Award (for THE CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS), the Yorkshire Post Award, Best Book of the Year (twice, for THE CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS and HOW MANY MILES TO BABYLON?). She has also been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, with SHADOWS ON OUR SKIN, and has won the Irish Book Awards Lifetime Achievement prize, in company with Seamus Heaney, John Banville and John McMahon

Reviews
The quiet, elegiac prose is well sustained * Guardian *
Characters damaged by their upbringing are Jennifer Johnston's metier, and echoes are a favourite motif. In what is, despite its title, a very fine novel, the tragedies of her family's past recur as Imogen's words resound off the coastal bay. A taut narrative, pared prose and lyrical imagery add up to a sad affirmation of Philip Larkin's adage * Saturday Telegraph *
Characteristically wry [and] intelligent * Eileen Battersby, Irish Times *



Book Information
ISBN 9780747269465
Author Jennifer Johnston
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Headline Review
Publisher Headline Publishing Group
Weight(grams) 168g
Dimensions(mm) 199mm * 130mm * 15mm