(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.
3.30 am: the stormy sea picks me up and carries me away; it's holding me to ransom, but no-one's going to pay
5 am: the rainy glittery night, the sea out of time; everything more beautiful than it ever was before
5 am: the hardness of the January sea, stripped bare and black by the cold I get out: if I stood still long enough, I'd be covered in frost
'I was innocent of the sin of the Ancient Mariner; time after time I warned Captain Ahab to accept happiness' W. H… t.co/XzDszp0nba