What makes a father violent? It takes a brave man to find out . . .

As a volunteer at St Margaret's Hospice, eager and helpful Meryl is looking for a role in life. The arrival of Jamie, the son of a patient, may be just what she is after. He is good-looking, young and, above all, troubled.

Jamie's father has only a few days to live, but between father and son is a lifetime of misunderstanding and unhappiness. Could the most powerful legacy Jamie faces be an inability to love? With well-meaning Meryl hovering in the background, Jamie embarks on his long dark night of the soul, facing the secrets, lies and heartbreaks behind his father's life.

Meanwhile his dying father, seemingly unconscious to it all, relives his extraordinary history, from the triumphs of his life as a boxer, to the onset of a crippling illness he doesn't understand. And in the quiet of the night, he receives strange visitors of his own....

Afsaneh Knight was born in December 1978. She lives in London with her husband and two children. This is her first novel.

The Time Out quote: tied to the sofa all weekend (not your chair)

As a volunteer at St Margaret's Hospice, eager and helpful Meryl is looking for a role in life. The arrival of Jamie, the son of a patient, may be just what she is after. He is charismatic, young and above all troubled.

Jamie's father has only days to live, but between father and son is a lifetime of misunderstanding. With well-meaning Meryl hovering in the background, Jamie embarks on his long, dark night, facing the secrets, lies and heartbreaks behind his father's life. Could the most powerful legacy Jamie faces be an inability to love?

'Knight's début packs a steady and unrelenting series of punches. A book about love, but not sentimentality...and all the better for its lack of easy answers' Vogue

'I was gripped...sharp and astringent, with great emotion' Margaret Forster

'Deft and promising' Spectator

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