by Andrew Miller

Death and failure may not be uppermost on your list of topics to read about on a recreational basis, but I would urge you to give Andrew Miller’s book a go. On the surface it’s a very ordinary human tale: a family gathers to comfort their matriarch through the final days of her fight with cancer. Yet finely drawn characters and the intrigue of being allowed to peek into their past lives, future hopes and strivings for redemption, meaning and the ever-elusive happiness, render this a masterpiece of the human condition. This, Miller’s third of six novels to date, has definitely left me wanting to read more.

©Julia Welstead 2011