(Fourth Estate, 2001).
Netley’s vast Victorian hospital stood for one hundred years of history, its traumatic, gothic story echoing out through personal memoir and collective memory.
‘A book that has everything a passionate reader could want – a subject that far transcends the trivial pursuits of contemporary writing, concerns both public and private, astonishing details, stylistic precision, a unique sense of time and place, and a great depth of vision.’
W.G. Sebald, Sunday Telegraph.
1 am: swimming under a ferocious moon, carried away by the swollen spring tide; the sea knows more than me
1.30 am: a smeary night to be in the sea, shadows of waves against the sky as I bob in the spring tide