Shortlisted for the Guyana Prize Caribbean Award 2011.

When Winston receives a telegram informing him of his father's imminent death, his decision to return to Jamaica is very reluctant. The memories opened up by his return tell us why.

But twenty-five years in the USA without contact with his family has allowed mutual resentments to mature and trapped Winston in the traumas of his childhood. And when he discovers he has a half-sister no one has told him about, his fury knows no bounds. But it is Rosa, his father's outside child, who in the end offers Winston some focus for his feelings.

Told through the perspectives of Winston and his estranged brother, Septimus, the novel becomes the story of their attempts to heal the breach between them, and become the kind of men who might be able to sustain a loving relationship.

Powerful, absorbing, always moving and sometimes painfully funny, Patricia Powell's new novel seamlessly combines an intense psychological realism with magical elements that are no surprise to her characters, but will surprise and delight her readers. Tough and unsentimental as it is, the novel has much to say about the power of forgiveness and the possibility of transcending hurt.

Patricia Powell was born in Jamaica. She is the award winning author of three novels including A Small Gathering of Bones and The Pagoda. She is currently Associate Professor of English at Mills College in California.