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The Secret Life of Alfred Nightingale

The Secret Life of Alfred Nightingale

Author(s): Rebecca Stonehill

Location(s): Matala

Genre(s): Fiction

Era(s): WW2, 1967, 2011/13

Location

Content

A compelling page turner of a buried past resurfacing, set against a backdrop of the 1960’s youth culture and war torn Crete. 1967. Handsome but troubled, Jim is almost 18 and he lives and breathes girls, trad jazz, Eel Pie Island and his best friend, Charles. One night, he hears rumours of a community of young people living in caves in Matala, Crete. Determined to escape his odious, bully of a father and repressed mother, Jim hitchhikes through Europe down to Matala. At first, it’s the paradise he dreamt it would be. But as things start to go wrong and his very notion of self unravels, the last thing Jim expects is for this journey of hundreds of miles to set in motion a passage of healing which will lead him back to the person he hates most in the world: his father. Taking in the counter-culture of the 1960’s, the clash of relationships between the WW2 generation and their children, the baby boomers, this is a novel about secrets from the past finally surfacing, the healing of trauma and the power of forgiveness.

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Book Reviews

Lead Review

Author: tripfiction

In the 1960s a community of backpacking hippies settled in Matala, a remote corner of Crete in the Mediterranean, where tourists were largely unknown. Tourists even came to goggle at the hippie tourists! They...

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