A Stone Boat

Andrew Solomon tells an exquisitely perceptive story of family, identity and the changes wrought by grief and loss. Harry, an internationally celebrated concert pianist, arrives in Paris to confront his glamorous mother about his homosexuality. Instead, he discovers she is terminally ill. In an attempt to escape his feelings of guilt and depression at the prospect of her death, he embarks on a series of intense love affairs that force him to question his sexual identity. But as time runs out and tragedy looms closer, it is the relationship between Harry and his mother that emerges in all its stark simplicity and purity. Part eulogy and part confession, "A Stone Boat" is a luminous and moving evocation of the love between a son and his mother.