Novel set in 1980s Kingston, JAMAICA
Night Waking

Location(s): The Hebrides
Genre(s): Fiction
Era(s): Modern
Dr Anna Bennett, together with her husband Giles and two young sons, Raphael and Moth, have come to fictional Colsay in the Western Isles, so he can monitor the puffin population and she can finish her book on 18th-century views on childhood. Yet snatched away from the comforts of her former Oxford life, Anna suddenly finds herself a household drudge, battling with Giles for precious time off from childcare. Her shrinking world is made yet more desolate by sleep deprivation. Sitting by Moth’s cot, her fingers slowly slipping millimetre by millimetre from his hot grasp Anna imagines walking out of the house and into the sea until the “cold water rises in my lungs.” One evening, as Moth once again refuses the arms of Morpheus, Anna fights the impulse to dash his skull against the wall. Emma Hagestadt The Independent
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