Live; live; live

A story of remembrance, desire, and the occult by one of Britain's finest contemporary novelists.The lapping of the waves was a lesson in mortality. Sometimes the corrective would work, and his turmoil would recede. The sound secured him, as the contemplation of a skull might make a penitent secure. And sometimes it was more than a corrective: it brought elation . . . "Live," it urged, with each whisper of the water. "Live; live; live." Leaning forward, Lucas repeated the words with too much fervor, to make sure that the lesson was not lost on me. This was his mission: not to help people to keep hold of the past, but to help them to live.Jonathan Buckley's latest novel Live; live; live is a subtly suspenseful and slow-burning story about the occult as a source of psychological and existential truth. Lucas is a man with a gift: he hears the dead speaking. Josh lives next door, just a boy when he first meets his mysterious, kind neighbor. But as he grows...