Shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award 2019
Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month for April 2020
Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2020
Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019
Uncovering the mystery of her mother's disappearance as a child: Laura Cumming,prize-winning author and art critic,takes a closer look at her family story.
In the autumn of 1929,a small child was kidnapped from a Lincolnshire beach. Five agonising days went by before she was found in a nearby village. The child remembered nothing of these events and nobody ever spoke of them at home.
It was another fifty years before she even learned of the kidnap. The girl became an artist and had a daughter,art writer Laura Cumming. Cumming grew up enthralled by her mother's strange tales of life in a seaside hamlet of the 1930s,and of the secrets and lies perpetuated by a whole community.
So many puzzles remained to be solved. Cumming began with a few criss-crossing lives in this fraction of English coast - the postman,the grocer,the elusive baker - but soon her search spread right out across the globe as she discovered just how many lives were affected by what happened that day on the beach - including her own.
On Chapel Sands is a book of mystery and memoir. Two narratives run through it: the mother's childhood tale; and Cumming's own pursuit of the truth. Humble objects light up the story: a pie dish,a carved box,an old Vick's jar. Letters,tickets,recipe books,even the particular slant of a copperplate hand give vital clues. And pictures of all kinds,from paintings to photographs,open up like doors to the truth.
Above all,Cumming discovers how to look more closely at the family album - with its curious gaps and missing persons - finding crucial answers,captured in plain sight at the click of a shutter.
Publisher: Vintage PublishingISBN: 9781784708634Number of pages: 320Weight: 277 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 24 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Currently Waterstones nonfiction book of the month,this is a scrupulous work of storytelling,radiant with profound empathy and filial affection.'- The Guardian
'The real story of the book isn't how she was taken from Chapel Sands,but what was taken from her: the truth about who her parents were and why she was adopted; the reason a woman approached her in her teens and said: "Your grandmother wants to see you,"when the only grandmother she had known was dead.'- The Guardian
'A deeply felt,forensic yet ultimately empathetic examination of human motivation and its attendant sorrows,which is as much a social history of the early 20th century as it is a story of one family and its secrets. Her intermeshing of art,time and memory is superlative.'- The Telegraph
'The book,is a series of revelations,one twist the reader might foresee early on,but most come out of the blue... the book is a love letter to her mother.'- The Guardian
'On Chapel Sands is much more than a search for truth. It is a moving,many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness,and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short,a masterpiece.'- The Sunday Times
'An absolute masterpiece. A book bursting with love - love lost and love found,love misunderstood,unsaid and denied. I was spellbound by Laura Cumming's warm,intelligent,searching voice and her intense scrutiny of images to reveal the unexpected and make us think again. I am in complete awe. A beguilingly lovely book - as big as the sea'- Keggie Carew,author of Dadland
'This utterly enthralling family memoir draws you into a mystery from the childhood of the author's mother... spellbinding... (Cumming) has also woven in photographs and artworks,which beautifully illuminate and complement the narrative'- Caroline Sanderson,The Bookseller
Laura Cumming on On Chapel Sands
Description
Laura Cuming shares one of the family photographs that proved crucial in unearthing more about her family history and her mother's disappearance.
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