Michael Frayn's new novel is a loss-of-innocence story in which an elderly narrator is prompted to disinter long-buried memories of a particular time and place. Slowly at first, a narrative begins to emerge: a golden summer, a semi-rural idyll, the first stirrings of adolescence. Rather than having a poignant romance with someone close to his own age, though, the protagonist becomes embroiled in adult affairs which he is ill-equipped to understand. Childish misapprehensions unearth grown-up betrayals, with unhappy results for everyone concerned; and the narrator is left with a lifelong unease that can only be confronted and examined from the perspective of old age.

LRB 21 February 2002 | PDF Download