Moths

Opening in the 1930s, this stunning novel tells the parallel stories of a father and son whose lives take the reader through critical moments of mid 20th-century European history, in miniature - from WWII and its aftermath to the Siberian Gulag. Alongside its Nabokovian precision and dark undercurrents, it has an unexpected black humour as well as a fantastic jazz sub-plot.

A self-indulgent Dutch businessman finds himself caught up in the liberation of Auschwitz, imprisoned as a spy by the liberating Russian army, shipped off to Minsk and Moscow to play in a bizarre jazz band, and then, when jazz beomes 'decadent' once more, to the Gulag, where his estranged son, a long-distance runner, finally catches up with him... Meanwhile, the boy (called Dolboy, because he looks like a tiny blond doll) is brought up by his doting childless aunt in the flat farmlands of east Holland, post-war. Wherever he goes, he runs, past dark forests, foxgloves, fields and birch trees. One day his running takes him to an old moated castle, where the summer house is full of moths - and he meets the curious young girl who breeds and keeps the creatures. He becomes a world-class runner, she a photographer.

Vivid, allusive, heartbreaking and with an astonishing range and layers of meaning, this is a startlingly original, important and gripping novel about people forced constantly to improvise their lives, about regeneration and the courage to embrace those single moments of opportunity.