Edna O'Brien's new novel is a story of attachments; especially the attachment between a mother and daughter, who yearn for closeness but are also estranged.From her hospital bed in Dublin, the elderly Dilly awaits the visit of her daughter, Eleanora, from London. The epochs of her life pass before her; emigrating to America in the 1920s, a romantic liaison she had there, the destiny that brought her back to Ireland, and her marriage into the stately Rusheen. She also retraces Eleanora's precipitate marriage to a foreigner, which alienated mother and daughter even more, and Dilly's heart-rending letters sent over the years in a determination to reclaim her daughter.Eleanora's visit does not prove to be the glad reunion that it might have been and, in her sudden departure, she leaves behind the secret journal of their stormy relationship, a revelation which brings the novel to a shocking close. Read Less