A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award and the European Union Prize for Literature 2019.
“His mistakes are my inheritance. The rotten blood he gave me is the blood I will pass on.”
For twenty years, Daniel Hardesty has lived with the emotional scars of a childhood trauma which he is powerless to undo. One August morning, Daniel and his estranged father Francis—a character of irresistible charm and roiling self-pity—set out on a road trip that seems a promise to salvage their relationship.
They have one shared interest, The Artifex, a children’s TV program where Fran works on set, and Daniel has been promised special access to the studio. But with every passing mile, the layers of Fran’s mendacity and desperation are exposed, pushing him to acts of violence that will define the rest of his son’s life.
The acclaimed author of The Ecliptic has written a novel of exceptional beauty about the bond between fathers and sons, and the invention and reconciliation of self—weaving a haunting story of lost innocence and love.
“A novel written from the gut, and with a correspondingly visceral power. A superbly unsettling account of trauma and cautious recovery.”—Sarah Waters, author of The Paying Guests
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A 12-year-old English boy's road trip with his father afflicts the rest of his life in Wood's uneven latest (after The Ecliptic). As a boy, narrator Daniel Hardesty is obsessed with the sci-fi show The Artifex. His father, Francis, estranged from his mother, is a set builder for the show in Leeds, and promises Daniel a studio visit. Francis is also a liar, and Daniel, now narrating as an adult and who hoards VHS tapes of the show, warns the reader that the trip went badly ("when I think about that August week and what transpired, I know it is the fault line under every forward step I try to make"), but it takes a while for the reader to find out just how disastrous. Along the way, Francis's temper and details of his philandering emerge, and he reacts violently when he and Daniel aren't allowed onto the studio lot. On the road, Daniel listens to an Artifex audiobook, and passages from it augment the narrative but add nothing. The novel's conclusion summarizes the immediate aftermath of Francis's actions and offers scattershot scenes from Daniel's adult life, but his soul-searching feels superficial. Before it's over, readers will find themselves searching for the remote.
