Anticipation

This rich and darkly funny novel is about family history and the risk and power of knowledge.

‘I want to tell you a story about my mother, although of course it is also mine – inherited, along with dangly earlobes and a horror of deep water.’

Janine’s mother had an obsession: her ancestry. But what she uncovered was a colourful assortment of characters and their penchant for cruelty and abuse. When her mother dies, Janine continues the genealogical search. She buys a run-down house on a tiny island, where she sits and writes up the stories of her forebears, worrying whether the damaging genes have been passed on. Meanwhile the builder, Jake, is erecting a jetty for her, and it is his presence, along with Janine’s discovery about her grandfather, that might offer her hope of redemption.

Startlingly original and superbly written, Tanya Moir’s surprising new book asks how much we really want to know about our futures and our pasts.