Reconstructionist

In an elegant world which seems stable and assured in which both the money andsocial setting seem secure the surface in this spellbinding fiction byJosephine Ha... » 

In an elegant world which seems stable and assured in which both the money andsocial setting seem secure the surface in this spellbinding fiction byJosephine Hart betrays the truth. Appropriately Jack is a psychiatristdedicated to others to the examination of other peoples pasts and thereconstruction of their lives he has so absorbed himself in the problems ofothers that he has not quite come to grips with his own to the detriment ofhis marriage and his own unexamined past.When he and his sister Kate are summoned to Ireland for the sale of the familyhome the burdens of the familys heritage return in full force. Though hethinks he has successfully suppressed the anguish of his past the presentthreatens to unravel around him. In the house in Ireland terrible truths emergeabout what happened years ago in a family tragedy that left indelible marks.The facts may have been reconstructed many times but the appalling truth hasnot.The Reconstructionist is a remarkable novel of startling psychological powerabout the reckless quality of exclusive love about the damage done infamilies and about the way we build our lives from fragments of memory halftruths compromise and desire. This is Josephine Hart at the top of her form. «