Martin Sloane - Tapa blanda

"Redhill writes delightful, convincing and sparky dialogue... Like a work by Joseph Cornell itself, this is a structurally complex novel infused with charm, tenderness and exquisite humour." (Independent)

"Beautifully structured, and shards of cleverness and humour run through it... hard to put down" (TLS)

"Often intriguing... Jolene's youthful crassness and belated recognition or everything she lost are sharply and movingly evoked." (Sunday Times)

In 1984, Jolene Iolas, a student in upstate New York, encounters Martin Sloane's work while visiting a Toronto gallery. Flush with the confidence of youth, she strikes up a correspondence with the older artist, and eventually they become lovers. Introduced to a constancy of love she has never known, she learns Martin's story, and cherishes it as her own. And then, without warning, without a word, he vanishes. There is no hint of his fate, no chain of cause and effect to be followed.

Ten years pass, and Jolene learns to stop trying to make sense of what has happened to her. But before she can fully return to life, the opportunity to confront her ghost arises. Word comes that someone named Sloane has been exhibiting artworks identical to Martin's in Irish galleries. Jolene travels to Dublin, where she is reluctantly reunited with her old friend, Molly and together the two women become lost in a jumble of pasts as they try to piece together what happened to Martin Sloane.

Seamlessly crafted and beautifully written, Martin Sloane evokes the mysteries of love and art, the weight of history, and what it means to bear memory for the missing and the dead. This is a truly remarkable debut.