Dear great-grandson

the long version

"In 1940, using the war as a pretext, a man despatches his young wife, against her will, to New Zealand with their young son. She settles in Auckland, and despite hardship, her sunny nature attracts friends to see her through life. Her son recalls their lives in Auckland of the 1940s and 1950s and then curiously replicates his mother's emotional dislocation, compromising his own sense of identity by returning to England. In this and in other respects, lessons for his descendants abound"--Back cover.