Nathan Staples is a man in pain, consumed by loathing and love in roughly equal measures. Frustrated and appalled by his life and the way he lives it, he is sustained only by his passionate devotion to his estranged wife, Maura, and their teenage daughter, Mary - whom he hasn't seen in fifteen years, and who thinks he's dead. When Nathan contrives to have Mary invited to the island where he lives in retreat, he sets in motion the possibility of telling her he is her father, and of becoming whole and complete and alive again.The path to grace, though, is strewn with obstacles and challenges. The obsessive island dwellers are trying to cure themselves through trial by extremity while, over in London, Nathan's editor, only friend and one link with his literary career - the brilliant, loyal, hopeless Jack - is drinking himself into the ground. And Mary is torn emotionally between familial love for the two uncles who brought her up in loco parentis and the beginnings of a romantic, sexual life beyond. Read Less