A very remarkable first novel' - John Berger From the winner of the 1999 London Writers' Award comes this already highly praised first novel that presents an acute observation of the nature of identity and memory. Having grown up in the Home Counties, with her Jewish identity submerged, Hannah experiences a sense of alienation and otherness and her early marriage to an emotionally repressed husband is shattered by his infidelity. A failed affair leads to a breakdown and the discovery that identity is not dependent on spurious notions of 'romance'.'