The burning down of his house propels Alistair, now living with his daughter, her husband and child, to reflect on the causes and effects of life: how momentary impulses change the course of direction, how unexpected horrors still haunt him, how friendship can be nurtured as well as starved, how love sustains, how hatred destroys and how, in a ramshackle way, it all makes a peculiar, and rather moving, sort of sense. This is a writer at the very apex of his art, understated, calm, totally in control of his craft.
