If you look for a narrative, a plot, a cohesive time-line in your fiction, then this book is probably not for you.

It begins simply enough, in 1917 with John, a young soldier lying on a battlefield after an explosion, unable to feel his legs. He loses himself in memories: memories of childhood and his great love. But then the book starts to digress, from place to place and time to time. Are these vignettes related? There is a tenuous link but I found myself losing interest as the book gave short, sharp, ‘quotable quotes’ which didn’t seem to have anything to do with any plot.

It’s a book that has garnered many five star reviews (not to mention being short-listed for the 2024 Booker Prize). For me, it made me feel slightly dim, like I was missing the point.

I believe Anne Michaels is a poet - perhaps this would have been more successful if presented as a series of separate poems - as a ‘novel’, I found it occasionally lyrical, but on the whole, totally impenetrable.