Safety

Elizabeth has fallen in love in her early adulthood, but with a lack of conviction anddisturbing results. A little damaged, in her late twenties she embarks on a new affair withRoss, a fellow academic at her university. Their relationship blooms and offers herprotection and security, for which she’s been searching since she stopped being a child.She moves into his big, old, rambling family home by the Parramatta River and becomespregnant. Then Ross’s father, who deserted the family as a child and for whom Ross onlyseems to feel hatred and bitterness, resurfaces. He is living in Spain, but he is dying.Elizabeth persuades Ross that the family should make a journey to see him, to make peacewith him and to show him Anna - their new daughter. But their holiday lays barediscomfitting truths and frailties, both in their relationship and each other.Bennett Daylight unfolds Ross and Elizabeth’s love affair, and the joy and pain ofmotherhood, with wonderful sensitivity in a captivating story written in hercharacteristically spare, limpid prose.