"A daring writer who can be relied on to ignore expectation, and is becoming one of the most interesting, honest and thought-provoking novelists working today."—The Guardian

"Jones' rejection of isolationism and imaginative embrace of so much that the world has to offer make him a literary figure to watch."—Los Angeles Times

A powerful and unexpected memoir from the author of the best-selling Man Booker Prize–shortlisted Mister Pip.

As the New Zealand city of Christchurch lies in ruins after the catastrophic earthquake of February 2011, Lloyd Jones begins a search for his past, a search that takes him through childhood memories of puzzling events to Pembroke Dock in Wales, and finally to the discovery of a devastating court transcript.

On this extraordinary journey, he pieces together the fragments of a story that has been buried in his family for a lifetime. A mother who gave up her daughter, a naval captain drowned at sea, a marriage to save a child.

And a truth that changes everything.

Lloyd Jones was born in New Zealand in 1955. His best-known novel is the international bestseller Mister Pip, which won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the 2008 Kiriyama Prize Fiction Category, the 2008 Montana Award for Readers Choice, the Montana Fiction Award, and the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry. It was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and has been made into a major feature film starring Hugh Laurie (House). Lloyd Jones lives in Wellington, New Zealand.