Ara and Kit, two girls in the village school, seem to have nothing in common. Ara, the elder, is large, earthy and illiterate; Kit is lean, brainy and interested in abstractions like philosophy. After they leave school Ara cannot let Kit alone – she is drawn to her as a moth to a candle flame.
‘It was in the village school playground that Kit first laid eyes on Ara and determined that they were to become best friends. Kit was 10, Ara two years older. If Kit was a scrawny little girl, quick and dynamic, Ara was large, slow, and deliberate. The story o their friendship is told through the eyes of Kit, and it shows with astonishing precision just how a person, especially someone growing up, is a battleground on which obsessive claims of the mind, addictions, and instincts strive for domination. ‘
Reviews
“Airy and sharp, graceful and emotionally exact.”
– Julian Evans, Independent
“It is a novel of ideas exploring the nature of addiction, emotional dependency, the hunger to belong and the slow awakening in the narrator of the opposite impulse to become independent, self-created and free.”
– Expats Magazine
