- The Slowworm's Song, by Andrew Miller. Sceptre, $32.99.
To say this book is different would be an understatement. It is a novel told completely in the written words of a former British soldier who has fallen on hard times and who is now trying to explain his life to his daughter.
Stephen Rose is from an English Quaker family. His grandfather spent time in Wormwood Scrubs for his objection to the First World War; his father refused to be conscripted for the next big war and spent time doing compulsory forestry work.
So young Stephen was surprised when there was no objection to him signing up. After training and a few years in Germany, he was posted to Belfast.
The book describes an event that happened there and the way that it affected Stephen.
That action on the streets of the Ardoyne is described in some detail, not in a way that excuses what happened or tries to explain it away. But it affected the rest of Stephen's life, much of which was spent in shelters or squats or under bridges.
His marriage fell apart and he lost contact with his only daughter Maggie. The book is his life story as he tries to explain it in writing to her, in the hope that it will bring them back together.
The story is in the present tense, with frequent reprises of events from 1982 in Belfast. His account of his time there as a twenty-one-year-old soldier has a strong feeling of authenticity.
This, the reader feels, is what it was like for the squaddies in "a solid Republican area and a place we never passed through without some expectation of harm ... where it would not be difficult for a gunman in one of those countless windows to settle his sights on the back of your head."
Although what happened in Belfast is the core of the book, it takes second place to the attempts of the adult Stephen to make sense of his life.
He finds help in the friendship and quiet of Quaker meetings and in his uncertain employment in a garden centre.
At the height of his alcoholism, Maggie, then aged thirteen, decided that she did not need a father. Now she is unhappy that he chose to write to her rather than tell her his story face to face, and this causes another relapse, after which he is fortunate to be given a place in a rehab centre in Bristol.
This is a deeply poignant story. The characters are completely human, keen to help each other, a story of redemption and the trials of those seeking redemption. There are no "baddies" in the story.
Towards the end, the portion spent in the rehab centre in Bristol is the kind of writing that reminds you that there really are good people in the world.
A story about hope.