First Aid

The victim of domestic violence, Jo's impulse is to run away - to escape the small town where her marriage has dissolved and a love affair has apparently soured - and to return with her children to the house in London where she was raised. But it is Jo's teenage daughter who runs away, jumping from a London-bound train between stations. Why Jo doesn't give chase, seek help, or even report her missing daughter becomes gradually clear in a novel that challenges the notion of what a good mother is and does.