On an autumn day in 2006, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton - former Devon farmer, now proprietor of a seaside caravan park - receives the news that his brother Tom, not seen for years, has been killed in Iraq.
For Jack and his wife Ellie this will have a potentially catastrophic impact and compel Jack to make a crucial journey: to receive his brother's remains, but also to return to the land of his past and confront his most secret, troubling memories.
Praise for Mothering Sunday:
'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly... Swift's small fiction feels like a masterpiece' Guardian
'Alive with sensuousness and sensuality ... wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement' Sunday Times
'From start to finish Swift's is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game' Evening Standard
'Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives - the parallel stories - we can never know ... It may just be Swift's best novel yet' Observer