The Illuminations
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From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Mayflies and Caledonian Road
** Order Andrew O'Hagan's new novel Caledonian Road now **
How much do we keep from the people we love? Why is the truth so often buried in secrets? Can we learn from the past or must we forget it?
Standing one evening at the window of her house by the sea, Anne Quirk sees a rabbit disappearing in the snow. Nobody remembers her now, but this elderly woman was in her youth a pioneer of British documentary photography. Her beloved grandson, Luke, now a captain with the Royal Western Fusiliers, is on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, part of a convoy taking equipment to the electricity plant at Kajaki. Only when Luke returns home to Scotland does Anne's secret story begin to emerge, along with his, and they set out for an old guest house in Blackpool where she once kept a room.
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This empathetic novel from O Hagan (Our Fathers) revolves around a fictional, largely unknown photographer named Anne Quirk, and Luke, her grandson, who serves in the British Army. Anne suffers from dementia and lives in a retirement community. Luke is serving in Afghanistan, where he listens to death metal, gets stoned, and watches the war tear apart his mentor, Major Scullion. In her youth, Anne was a sharp woman, with a keen eye for beauty in the commonplace. Luke often reminisces on the moments they had together, and the ways she encouraged him to look closely at the world around him. When Luke was 12, she took him to Dunure Harbour, where they stood holding hands on the jetty, the wind pushing them back as they took great gulps of air. Breathe, Luke! she said. You can t argue with that! Fresh wind off the sea. Oh my. I wish I could catch it with the camera. As Anne s memory deteriorates, Luke seeks out details about her life and discovers a life marked by tragedy and self-deceit. O Hagan sympathetically dissects how falsehoods burrow into daily life; his story provides a deeply felt urge to look more closely at the world and those we love.
