The Kindness
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
He followed her eyes skyward to a bird that was falling, turning and turning, like a heart that had leapt free. It fell, and as it did it became a falcon. He was transfixed.
Julian's fall begins the moment he sets eyes on Julia.
Julia is married and eight years his senior; he is a gifted English student, a life of academia ahead. Ignoring warnings from family and friends, they each give up all they have to be together. Their new life in London offers immense happiness, especially after their longed-for daughter Mira is born.
When Julian hears that Firdaws, his adored boyhood home, is for sale, he sets out to recreate a lost paradise for his new family. Once again, love blinds him. It is only when Mira becomes terrifyingly ill that it is impossible for Julia to conceal from him the explosive secret that she has been keeping at the heart of their lives.
Lyrical, haunting and exquisitely rendered, Polly Samson's second novel explores a deception that comes wrapped as a gift, a betrayal that is clothed in kindness, and asks if we can ever truly trust another. The result is an unforgettable story of love, grief, betrayal, and reconciliation, masterfully plotted and beautifully told.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Deception poisons two marriages in Samson's (Perfect Lives) convoluted he said/she said tale of betrayal and acceptance. Julian, a gifted 21-year-old writer, first relates the tortured unraveling of his life with Julia, the older beauty for whom he falls helplessly in love after her own marriage to a brutish abuser implodes. He and a pregnant Julia ultimately move to Julian's boyhood home, scraping by with his modestly successful books, until their baby daughter's illness exposes the secret Julia has been hiding. In Julia's narration, we learn of her attraction to Julian's boyhood friend, Karl, the lie she's willing to hide to protect Julian, and the betrayal she ultimately suffers. "You'd think it would be hard to remove every trace of yourself from a life, but really, it isn't," Julia says. Their daughter, Mira, doesn't escape unscathed from this collection of sullen adults. Samson, creates a moving portrait of a family torn by the stress of a sick child and a sensuous, lyrical account of a failed marriage.
