My Father's Moon

Vera is young, awkward and naive. As schoolgirl she has her sheltered idealism, her Quaker boarding - school education, and the warm, enveloping security of her parents. As student nurse at the large military hospital during the war, her transition to womanhood - and victim to more experienced players - is rapid, painful and disastrous. And as unmarried mother she flees, from the nagging tension of her home and the gossipy stares of the hospital, to Fairfields, a place of poetry, music and of people with interesting lives and ideas. Quickly she learns it is otherwise. Yet, for Vera, always there is the moon - her companion, comforter, and the unbreakable link with her father... My Father's Moon is one of Elizabeth Jolley's finest novels, full of alarming perceptions, black irony and tenderness. It is a remarkable achievement.