Sarah Moss is a teacher at The University od Warwick Writing Programme. (http://www.sarahmoss.org/about/) Signs of Lost Children is her 4th novel to date. It is a continuation of the story contained in her book Bodies of Light. It begins in Victorian England. The summary is as follows. Only weeks into their marriage a young couple embark on a six-month period of separation. Tom Cavendish goes to Japan to build lighthouses and his wife Ally, Doctor Moberley-Cavendish, stays and works at the Truro Asylum. As Ally plunges into the institutional politics of mental health, Tom navigates the social and professional nuances of late 19th century Japan. He first realises the fact that there are alternative ways of living, and is then drawn to them. This is a work of fiction with emotional insight. It is built in two parts from Falmouth to Tokyo, offering portraits of loneliness and determination. Moss is particularly good at showing how personal identity crumbles when it has nothing to pin itself to. A person is really the social space he inhabits and the impacts he makes upon that space. A fictional expression, then, of the idea that the self is not substantial – rather a useful fiction, a working project. Read to see if ‘you’ agree.
Enquire at your local library or consult http://www.amazon.co.uk/Signs-Lost-Children-Sarah-Moss/dp/178378105X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449914431&sr=8-1&keywords=signs+for+lost+children for full bibliographic detail.
368 pages in Granta
First published 2015
ISBN 978-1783781058
Sarah Moss