By the author of Konstantin…"A superb book from the border, bright, full of truth, romantic and real… an honourable successor to Bruce Chatwin's On the Black Hill, springing from the same ground." Horatio Clare, author of Running for the HillsSet in the Welsh Borders in 1980, The Claude Glass charts an unlikely friendship between two neighbours; Robin, the seven-year-old son of English hippie sheep farmers, and Andrew, a child so neglected by his impoverished parents that he is left almost mute, seeking solace among the farm dogs.Exploring his parentís semi-derelict farmhouse, Andrew finds an antique convex mirror – a Claude Glass – and, gazing into it, the two boys see their wild, rural landscape strangely ordered. But this comforting vision proves fragile as tensions and sexual jealousy rock the adult world around them.Written with a lyricism and freshness that echoes the early work of Esther Freud or Bruce Chatwin, The Claude Glass draws you into the lives of its startling characters and their tarnished romance with nature.
