Marcella Polain

For Orla, living in the suburbs in 1968 on the cusp of adolescence, her father is a great shining light, whose warm and powerful presence fills her world. But after his sudden death, Orla, her mother, and her sister are left in a no-man's land, a place where the certainties and protections of the nuclear family suddenly and mysteriously no...

The Edge of the World is a powerful, monumental story of a Turkish Armenian family spanning one hundred years, four countries and several generations. A family that disintegrates as a result of genocide, exile and emigration, but which, through acts of courage and compassion, is eventually brought together again—albeit utterly changed. A riveting, imaginative and beautifully written story of a...

A life lived with melancholy, its spikes, its other rhythms, its insistence. In the end, when we learn this part of us is part of us, is not our enemy, when we live long enough to eschew fear of judgments—social, medical, personal—eschew the idea of 'normal' and the label of 'well', what can these undercurrents of sadness teach us? These...