Reminiscent in theme and style to his Whitbread Award-winning? Hopeful Monsters, Nicholas Mosley’s? The Hesperides Tree ?tells of a young man frustrated by the inability of his two chosen courses of study–biology and literature–to adequately define the world. Baffled by several life-shaping coincidences that seem to be part of life itself, he embarks on a physical and intellectual journey in search of a girl he fell in love with years earlier. This journey leads him to a deserted island off the coast of Ireland and, perhaps, to the mythical Garden of the Hesperides, home of the Tree of Life.