I liked that Swati and Rachel went on to live independently and remained friends, but this is pretty much the only part of the book I enjoyed. An ambitious coming-of-age novel from debut author Jo McMillan, which is wonderfully written and filled with quirky details and descriptions . The women’s credible learning from each other makes this a worthy tale of bridging a cultural divide. The opposites and clashes of bright and dull, of new next to old and enlightened and abiding were interesting.

Then he too falls into the obscurity that devours all, and Tenedos melts into darkness as if it had never existed.Recent titles from Unsolicited Press are the moon won’t be dared, a poetry collection, October 2021, and a winter night, a novel, released in March 2021. When she tells Jay that she can’t read his latest book because it isn’t in large print like all the bestsellers, it is a paper-cut of derision.

This technique allows the author to illustrate the significant gap between Swati’s worldview and Rachel’s, though a reader who shares Swati’s Marwari heritage — and, to be clear, this reader does not — may not find all of Swati’s inner monologues entirely plausible. Floyd, by the way, is no slouch himself, writing an eight-page hatchet job of his brother’s work, just as Theroux’s brother Alexander did. Life, death, creation, destruction, past, present, future have yet to find a name; and that which has been lost is still playing out its final act.This volume makes available once more a book that has become a classic in its field and a vital part of the historiography of modern Wales.