Consolation

Description

1910, and Corley Roper, an eminent children's author of his age, mourns the death of his young daughter. Estranged from his wife, and wracked by grief, he happens one night upon Mary Wilson, a woman in a similar position, as she mourns her stillborn son. No longer able to inhabit the fictional world that made his name, and haunted by the spectre of this other lost child, Roper decides that it is only through engaging with the real world, and the mystery of Mary Wilson's dispossessed heritage, that he may find purpose. Meanwhile, a young American journalist, Alice Dangerfield, has travelled across the Atlantic on a quest of her own, to track down her most cherished author.

James Wilson has written plays, TV documentaries (including the award-winning Savagery and the American Indian for the BBC) and a critically-acclaimed history of Native Americans, The Earth Shall Weep. His three previous novels were The Dark Clue, The Bastard Boy and, most recently, The Woman in the Picture, described by Kate Saunders in The Times as 'a multi-layered, deeply absorbing and entertaining novel'.

'Drawing on the history of his own family and blending it seamlessly with fiction, James Wilson brings a century-old story to life through the compelling evocation of Corley's voice, as well as painstaking attention to the detail of the period. The result is an animated, haunting and surprisingly uplifting novel.' Observer