Description
It’s 1913 and a young, carefree and recklessly innocent girl, Mina, goes out into the forest on the edge of the Baltic sea and meets a gang of rowdy young men with revolution on their minds.
It sounds like a fairy tale but it’s life.
The adventure leads to flight, emigration and a new land, a new language and the pursuit of idealism or happiness – in Liverpool.
But what of the stories from the old country; how do they shape and form the next generations who have heard the well-worn tales?
From the flour mills of Latvia to Liverpool suburbia to post-war Soho, The Story of the Forest is about myths and memory and about how families adapt in order to survive.
It is a story full of the humour and wisdom we have come to relish from this wonderful writer.
‘Epic and marvellously entertaining…there’s a furious energy to the novel, which constantly moves forward even as it looks sorrowfully back’ – Financial Times
‘Magnificent…I want to press a copy on everyone I know’ – Nigella Lawson
‘Epic, magnificent, beautiful…I couldn’t put it down’ – Philippa Perry
‘Jewel-like clarity…exceptional’ – Richard Coles
‘Exquisite writing [and] a triumphant, elegant ending’ – Mail on Sunday
‘An intelligent family saga…ambitious and moving and funny’ – Tessa Hadley