A Costa Prize winner and Booker finalist, Andrew Miller, has written an intriguing novel about loneliness and the secret of the human soul.
Mord is mysterious and distant, so everyone wants to help her and save her lost soul. Tim—philologist and musician—also falls for the mysterious girl: a future scientist whose dream is to explore the sea and its inhabitants. Tim and Mord are drawn together by their love for water: they marry, buy a small used yacht, go out to sea, and have a child.
But for Mord, all of this—marriage, child, slow everyday life—feels like a cover. She doesn’t understand the conditions of the world around her, and the world doesn’t understand her desire to live beyond familiar conventions. When the time comes for her to understand the boundaries of her inner world, Mord will have to decide to cross over. But can loneliness be defeated with even more loneliness?