A Perfect Explanation

Finalist for the Desmond Elliott Prize A superb debut * novel–based on the story of the author’s grandmother–following an aristocratic woman who abandons her family and her money in search of a life she can claim as her own. (*The Guardian)

Enid Campbell, granddaughter of a duke, grew up surrounded by servants, wanting for nothing except love. But when her brother died in the First World War, a new heir was needed, and it was up to Enid to provide it.

A troubled marriage and three children soon followed. Broken by postpartum depression, overwhelmed by motherhood and a loveless marriage, Enid made the shocking decision to abandon her family, thereby starting a chain of events–a kidnap, a court case, and selling her son to her sister for GBP500–that reverberated through the generations.

Interweaving one significant day in 1964, when it seems the family will reunite for one last time, with a decade during the interwar period, A Perfect Explanation explores the perils of aristocratic privilege, where inheritance is everything and happiness is hard won.