The Visitor

It is 1880 in Cornwall. Pearl, Nicholas, and Jack play among the fishing boats of Skommow Bay, not understanding the undercurrents beneath their games. Nine years later, Nicholas, keen for the fishing industry and society as a whole to progress, makes a decision that will affect all of their lives forever. Told from the point of a view of an aging Pearl, succumbing to dementia, in 1936, this moving novel jumps back and forth through time as Pearl's own memory does and explores topics such as the tension between individual will and the pressure to conform to societal norms, love and tragedy, and the ripple effects of a dying industry. The story is set against the scenic backdrop of Cornwall as well as the late 19th-century riots over the observance of the Sabbath in the fishing industry, and serves as a tremendously accurate snapshot of a particular moment in time and a meditation on the universal themes of love and loss. A lyrical, and deeply moving memoir, with the author s relationship with the celebrated Welsh poet and Nobel prize nominee RS Thomas at its heart, this book is for anyone interested in the redemptive power of the pastoral and the language of great poetry and literature, or ever moved by profound love, betrayal or loss. When railway signalman Harry Price suffers a stroke his son Matthew, a lecturer in London, makes a return to the border village of Glynmawr. As Matthew and Harry struggle with their memories of social and personal change, a beautiful and moving portrait of the love between a father and son emerges