I see you. Inside the cage you have been given. The cage you have made. The cages we have all made
It's 2020 and an Englishwoman is journeying with her husband and young daughter to the white rock off the coast of Mexico,to give thanks for the birth of their child,even as her faith in her marriage - and the future itself - is unravelling.
It is 1969 and a singer,on the run from the law,from his rabid fans and from an America burning with the fever of the Vietnam War,washes up in a hotel at the edge of Mexico,hoping to lose - and maybe find - himself.
In the first years of the Twentieth Century,a girl and her sister are torn from their homeland and taken by force to the coast. As their future is recast in the name of progress and power,she turns to the stories of her people to keep them alive.
And in 1775 a young Lieutenant of the Spanish line,preparing to set sail from the White Rock to continue the conquest of the Pacific coast,appears to lose his grip on reality,with far-reaching and fatal consequences ...
The White Rock is a breathtaking novel of lives echoing through time,of the many forms of violence and love,and what happens when the stories we have lived by can no longer keep us safe.
Publisher: Penguin Books LtdISBN: 9780241995495Number of pages: 304Weight: 213 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 18 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Precise and perceptive...Deeply satisfying...We may struggle to find hope,Hope tells us,but it is there in the landscape,in faith and memory and ritual,in the ancient unchanging silences that persist'- Guardian
'An eco-novel you actually want to read...She's an assured author with a knack for an arresting image...It leaves you with a gentle sense that things keep going'- The Times
'Its narrative sweep is capacious...It has ambition to match,musing on freedom and reciprocity,on the redemptive power of storytelling and the sustaining force of ritual...Demonstrating impressive stylistic verve'- Observer
'Mesmerising...Imaginative...Among its many impressive elements is Hope's handling of the past...Her greatest talent is in getting under the skin of her characters...There is a subtle plangency in this powerful portrait of human folly and ferocity'- The Herald
'Deeply moving...I,for one,hope we hear plenty more from her'- i news
'Full of wisdom about the blink-and-you'll-miss-it nature of our lives'- Good Housekeeping
'Mysterious and beautiful. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas,but it's very much itself: so bold and wild,but controlled and fierce. It's stunning writing and it has left me with hope,that we can tell stories like these even as the carbon builds,and that imagination and ideas remain powerful and valid'- Russell T. Davies
'Perfectly crafted,evocative prose which effortlessly transported me through two hundred and fifty years of history'- Claire Fuller
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