PURE, FLAWLESS HAPPINESS

Fox Photos, Hulton Archive, Getty Images
Hulton Archive, Getty Images

The Novel

It is 1938, and the Western world is edgy with fear.

A young Edith Schwarz lives in a London transfixed by the coming of war. Her life, so respectable on the surface, is a mess. With bombers threatening, she has no option but to reconsider her values, sexuality, and identity.

More than sixty years later - in a world where peace once more seems to hang by a thread - Edith is in crisis again. This time she has a choice, and maybe it's not too late to stop hiding.

This is a story of people who find inner strength and resourcefulness - not by being heroic, but by being ordinary.

MICHAEL SWAINE