A Gap in Nature

When May Nicholls’s husband returns from the Second World War, it is to find that his wife’s affections, such as they were, have been transferred to their young son, David. May, an English immigrant, is already a fish out of water in Claytown, a small central North Island town where everyone knows each other, and their business. Independent, ambitious, and unmoved by local gossip about her, May follows her own path, steadfastly favouring her son over the daughter born after the war. Until, in his twenties, David severs the bond, and begins a new life in London.

More than two decades later, a traumatic event forces David’s daughter Chloe to reassess her understanding of the father she never knew. Her determination to find an explanation for his actions takes her to New Zealand, where her father’s sister, a renowned musician, lives. As the reality of inter-generational trauma, and the unforeseen consequences of trying to forget, is gradually revealed to her, she is able to shine light on the gaps and absences in the past, forging, in the process, new, life-affirming connections.

“Tolstoy said it: happy families are all alike, while each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. With one foot in New Zealand and the other in England, the Nicholls family in Elspeth Sandys’s new novel intrigues and delights as its members struggle in their own way to find understanding, kinship and love.” – Fiona Farrell