Ravelling by
Peter Moore Smith
hbk out April 00
Published by Hutchinson
Little girl Fiona Airie goes missing one night from her parents' party. She is never seen again. Her two brothers Pilot (named after his father's
passion and job) and Eric grow up without her. The loss of Fiona tears the family apart; the parents' marriage breaks up, the mother is haunted by
thoughts of her daughter and troubled by double vision and Pilot suffers with schizophrenia. Eric throws himself into his medical studies and becomes
a successful neurosurgeon.
The novel opens some twenty years after Fiona's disappearance. Pilot is admitted to psychiatric hospital during an acute schizophrenic episode. He is tormented by voices and visions which lead him to believe that he now knows what happened to his sister. He is obsessed by the need to unravel the secret of what really took place but terrified of finally facing the reality. If he pursues the truth he risks further damaging his family. And in moments of self-doubt Pilot is frightened that he may also have blood on his hands. Ravelling is a stunning debut; poetic and disturbing it draws us into a world of memory, madness and confusion. Pilot, the all-seeing narrator, is a complex figure, mentally vulnerable but finding the resources to defy those around him and persist in his quest. Peter Moore Smith creates a world that
is finely imagined, richly evoked and tells a haunting, original and compelling story.
(M.E.N. 28/4/2000)
(
Cath Staincliffe
- Author of the highly acclaimed Sal Kilkenny Mysteries set on the Mean Streets of Manchester)
