by Richard Mason
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2009
416 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The setting is London. The time is the present. Mother and daughter are choosing an assisted-living facility. The mother, eighty years old, is a gifted amateur pianist. Recently, she has been experiencing a rich inner world that she hides from her daughter, a world she enters through the (seemingly magic) pedals of her piano.
The daughter, Eloise, forty-eight, a hedge-fund manager, has bought up $130 million (a quarter of the hedge fund’s capital) of a transition metal, based on a casual remark by her former lover, a French metallurgist—a genius of sorts—who worked for years on a compound for industrial use. If successful, it would more than double the value of Eloise’s fund. But while mother and daughter are on the trip of a lifetime to South Africa—a gift from daughter to mother—Eloise learns that the price of the metal is in free fall.
Staving off panic, Eloise puts in motion a bold gamble that risks everything—her future, the fund, her mother’s well-being ...
"Though Mason tends to spell everything out, the South African passages are sublime and the mother-daughter relationship well done." - Publishers Weekly.
"Starred Review. This extremely absorbing novel is highly recommended for all fiction collections." - Library Journal.
"A family drama made unmanageable by disparate plot threads." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Rich in historical background and indelible characters. . . an ambitious and brutally honest view of love, family and aging." - Booklist.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Richard Mason was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa and in London. His first novel, The Drowning People was published when he was a student at Oxford. This is his second novel. In 1999, Mason started the Kay Mason Foundation, which awards scholarships to students in South Africa. He lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
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