Stations

In 1980s Ireland, R is n and Red bond as only two precocious and disaffected teenagers can. Soon he is privy to the secret source of her shame and anger: the father who's abandoned her and her mother to their damp house and never-ending strife. But what does R is n know about why Red avoids going home to his own posh parents and house--the house he soon flees forever?

When a Christmas visit to her father reveals the devastating truth of his new life in London, R is n tracks down Red and moves into his Pimlico squat. But the path he is now on is a disturbing one, and gradually they drift apart. And yet the great, never-consummated passion of her youth remains a visitation upon the years that follow. Will R is n ever stop longing for Red? Will she ever learn to let someone else love her--or learn to love herself?

Stations is a gorgeous, wrenching novel about the terrible--and sometimes redemptive--power with which the past hovers over the present.