Miquel and his father are living an uneasy life together in his mother's house in the Pyrenees, the house she had been returning to on the day she died. A new bridge connecting the remote valley with a changing world is almost complete, which will end its isolation and create an easier route for smugglers. Where Miquel's father imagines opportunity, Miquel foresees disaster and an exposure to a modern way of living for which his father is desperately unprepared.
Colm Toibin's exhilarating short novel contains vast inner and outer worlds within its pages. With meticulous precision and an unerring eye, Toibin captures lives caught between the past and the present, and the journey of a young man seeking connection, haunted by loss.
