Extracts & Features

I watch the mother’s face mostly, details I hadn’t noticed before: the slope of her eyebrows, the clenching of her teeth, eyes rimmed with red.

My father built the house on Langely Lake for my mother, in the town she grew up in.

Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood. If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now.

There’s no way to know the exact second your life changes forever.

For the first time in his life, the words refuse to come.

Have you ever seen a town fall? Ours did.

‘Miss Armstrong? Miss Armstrong, can you hear me?’

Once we have a father, but our father dies without us noticing.

That I have my own lawn sprinkler has never quite dawned on me

‘Salaam, Ali-jaan. It’s me.’

Dear young girls, Home again from the deserts and oases of the Sheikdoms I find your enthusiastic letters on my desk.

Dr. Guzman rubbed her tired eyes.

They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible.

The sharks are circling, their nostrils twitching at the scent of blood.

The sea was calm the day Soo-min disappeared.

On New Year’s Eve, 31 December 2001, we buried our son.

There was something about the colour of the Kimberley sky that gave Free a shiver of joy every time she drove home to Paterson Downs.

Late for work, Reginald Oren raced across the street, the cobblestones slick from the night’s rain.

It was Miguel who called 911 at 4.07 a.m. on an icy Sunday morning.

And on the Shabbat, the priests would sing a song for the future that is to come, for that day which will be entirely Shabbat and for the repose of eternal life.