"His wild years behind him at last, Alfred Ashby has returned to where he was raised, the family farm in rural southwest England. Once a sought-after fashion photographer, he long ago renounced artifice and glamour to document the beauty and the horror of some of the world's least glamorous places. Now in his late fifties, he sorts his prints and negatives and takes inventory of a varied and unsettled life.

The old house in the valley - his one fixed point, the place where he belongs - affords him necessary solitude and a link to a more tranquil past.".

"His solitude is broken by a January visit from his headstrong older sister, Edith, a former Member of Parliament and the survivor of two disastrous marriages. To her Alfred's bachelor life is undesirable, his appearance careless, the images crowding his attic studio obsessive and disturbing. She has plans for Alfred, for the farm and for the future, plans she hopes will help the two of them mend their neglected relationship and forget their past sorrows, past mistakes.".

"In the course of their long winter visit - the air clear and still, the temperature never rising above freezing - this infinitely complicated brother and sister confront their deepest selves and the different directions their lives have taken."--BOOK JACKET.