With possibly the most unreliable narrator ever, an underlying supernatural menace pervades this gothic-style novel of buried trauma and grief. The urban working-class setting is a refreshing take on the usual middle class trope of marital disharmony and breakdown. Is it a love story, a mystery or a ghost story? You decide.
I had a great number of fathers: an embarrassment of them, you could say. There was Angry Father, Disgusting Father, Happy Father, Shoplifting Father, Mournful Father, Unfounded Accusations Father, and – my favourite father of all – Doting Father. Since he’d become unwell I had been making the effort to see him more often, but I never knew which one of his incarnations would be waiting for me on the brown settee waiting for me when I arrived.
