A hypnotic and haunting novel of motherhood, loss, and the invisible ties that bind us together, from Booker-shortlisted Daisy Johnson
The island is magnificent and terrifying and divine.
Close to the shore is the island: uninhabited, wild, with only a storm-beaten lighthouse for shelter. Ori was found on the island as a small child with a handful of stones, no memories and no mother. When she has a baby of her own, the job of motherhood feels immense and sleepless nights begin to shatter her grip on reality. Her head fills with the sound of stones knocking against each other and the mystery of her past begins to unravel, opening up a path to the mother she lost, and the mother she could become.
Years earlier, on a sweltering summer day, ten-year-old Ruth sees a woman and her baby walk into the river and disappear. But she is the only witness, and the water yields no trace. Ruth's mother Edith locks her daughter away - first to restrain these wild imaginings, and later, when she falls pregnant, to hide the shame. Ruth longs to escape and dreams of the nearby island, where she and her baby can finally be free.
Told with mythic power and lyrical precision, Long Wave is an extraordinary novel of longing and loss, rebirth and survival.
