Showing results by author "Howard Cunnell" in All Categories

The working-class painter Terry Godden was on the brink of his first success. After a violent crisis, he finds himself outcast. Nearing 60 and with modest means, he has retreated to a small island. The island seems to be a closed, cold place. As the seasons turn, Terry comes to see that he is one of many people who have sought refuge here. These independent outsiders, all with their own considerable struggles, have made a precarious home. The island is owned by the businessman and art collector Alex Kaplan.

Starting with his own childhood in the Sussex beachlands, Howard tells the story of the years of self-destruction that defined his young adulthood and the escape he found in reading and the natural world. Still he felt compelled to destroy the relationships that mattered to him. Saved by love and responsibility, Cunnell charts his journey from anger to compassion as his daughter, Jay, realizes he is a boy and a son. Most of all, this is a story about love - its necessity and fragility and its capacity to enable us to be who we are.