Black Dirt

A beautiful and haunting exploration of the ties and tensions within a family. With characters as diverse as Christ, the red-breasted robin and kings Arthur and Alfred, Black Dirt is the story of Frank - and the stories he tells George and Margaret, his adult children.

Lying ill in bed, Frank finds his dying dreams haunted by figures from his past: his parents, and his older sister Iris, whose existence - and terrible crime - he has spent long years struggling to forget.

Revealing the dark and sinister shadows that can shape a child's imagination, Nell Leyshon explores the boundaries of fantasy, where the familiar happy-ever-after ending of the fold-tales and fairy-stories is far from certain.