Connecting with her sequence ‘Gilead’, ‘Home’ and ‘Lila’, this new novel concerns the family’s errant son Jack, the intelligent, drunk, courteous, poetry-loving, foolish ne’er-do-well. Aspiring above all to harmlessness, he falls in love with a highly respectable ‘coloured gal’, who also falls for him. This being 1930s America, where discrimination is strictly enforced, circumstances are not promising: harm and redemption are inextricably entwined; the endless battle with Original Sin. Superb. Headrushes of wonder on every page.
