Arms Around Frank Richardson

National review coverage. Guardian Interview. BBC R4 reading, tbc. Blog tour

Spanning 30 years the scope of this novel is ambitious and the writing beautifully honed. Character and sense of place are masterfully achievedNature or nurture? The impact of traumatic childhood experience reverberates into the grown-up world of Frank, Alice and Henry – children from three families suffering the fall-out from their early life. Frank, a working-class boy abused by his step-father, Alice, physically handicapped and frustrated, Henry, the less clever son of wealthy ambitious parentsFrom a rundown estate in Eastleigh, a small town in Darlington and an affluent Cotswold home, each character grapples with the life fate has handed them. Until by chance they all come together in adulthood, the repercussions are explosive.