Canarino by Katherine Bucknell
What price perfection?
David is an American investment banker living in London; Elizabeth, his wife, is a woman of peerless beauty and refinement. They have two children; their marriage seems perfect. Why does she want him to retire and move home to America? One summer evening, David, alone in their empty mansion, receives a phone call from a long-lost friend. So begins a tale about friendship, marriage, and betrayal that is filled with unexpected reversals.
Canarino is a portrait of intimate relationships set in a world of privilege and achievement. Its characters possess personal gifts in dazzling abundance, yet their appetites to succeed, to be exceptional, tempt them to risk everything. What is the cost for the heart of seeking perfection?
In Katherine Bucknell’s first novel, beauty and passion are stalked by desolation. Like the drink of the title—boiling water over a twist of lemon peel—the prose has a sharp, delicate clarity. Beneath its polished surface lie psychological depths both uncanny and haunting. Canarino is a novel that lingers in the mind, a remarkable debut.
"A remarkably vigorous and subtle first novel: it is written with commanding authority and is impressively accomplished. The plotting is bold and alluring. The characters are vividly realised, forensically examined, beautifully observed. The writing throughout is spare and punctilious."
The Independent