In a remote monastery perched perilously on top of a crag in Piedmont, Italy, an old man lies dying. Thirty-two monks stand vigil at the deathbed; Mimo Vitaliani has lived among them for 40 years, yet few of them know exactly why. Nor did Vitaliani come alone, but with a mysterious statue that is kept under lock and key in the depths of the Sacra di San Michele,
In David Park's latest novel, time blurs as past and present intertwine, reflecting the evolution of personal struggles within the backdrop of Northern Ireland's rich history.
Knowing she would narrate it later back in the house, Florence would have to tell the story a different way. That instinct to reshape the unbearable into something legible sits at the core of Nightingale.
"The lure of travel, I thought, is only the lure of illusion, the mistaken belief that in a new country with different people and different ways, we can escape the confines of ourselves..."
In the early 17th-century wilderness, a servant girl flees a smallpox-ridden settlement, embracing survival through her resourcefulness against frigid conditions and patriarchal violence.
