Bobby Palmer's debut Isaac and the Egg, about a grief-paralysed widower whose life improves when he meets an ET-like creature, was a big hit. The British author's second novel also has the flavour of a modern-day fable. What makes it like a fable is not so much the - yes - talking fox, but more the novel's rhythmic prose and its sense that there can be communication between all living things.
The story centres on the relationship between city-dweller Jack, for whom "finance felt like a calling, the ultimate question to be solved", and his naturalist father Gerry who never leaves Moles End, the remote and ramshackle country home he shares with Jack's mother Hazel and sister Charlotte.
We first meet Jack when the finance sector start-up he works for goes bust. He is devastated but has no one to tell. He lived for work, has no friends and little contact with his, to him, depressingly rustic and unambitious family.
SMALL HOURS
by Bobby Palmer (Headline, $37.99)
This story is from the March 30 - April 5, 2024 edition of New Zealand Listener.
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This story is from the March 30 - April 5, 2024 edition of New Zealand Listener.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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