Love, idealism and revolution: what will happen when one man's radical youth explodes into his carefully constructed family life?
It’s the day before Mike Frame’s fiftieth birthday and his quiet provincial life is suddenly falling apart. But perhaps it doesn’t matter, because it’s not his life in the first place. He has a past that his partner Miranda and step-daughter Sam know nothing about, lived under another name amidst the turbulence of the revolutionary armed struggle of the 1970s.
Now Mike is seeing ghosts – a dead ex-lover and an old friend who wants to reminisce. Mike can no longer ignore the contradiction between who he is and who he once was. Which side was he on back then? And which side is he on now?
Hari Kunzru is the author of The Impressionist, Transmission and the short story collection Noise, and was named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, 2003. He is a contributing editor of Mute magazine and sits on the executive council of English Pen. He lives in East London.
