A Pure Clear Light
by Madeleine St John
A Pure Clear Light is Madeleine St John at her Booker Prize-shortlisted best: irony-edged, elegant, compassionate, true.Simon and Flora Beaufort are married with three children: they live a solid comfortable life. Yet both feel the dark abyss, the transitory nature of what underpins their lives and holds them together.When Flora takes the children to France for a month, Simon is drawn inexorably to another woman. Flora arrives home to find him there but not there, and in his unnameable absence heeds the cry of her reawakened faith.'St John is smart and perceptive and witty and can write up a storm...She is a wonderfully gifted writer; her small books contain large heart.' Washington Post