The Still Point
2010
First Published
3.46
Average Rating
320
Number of Pages
At the turn of the twentieth century, Arctic explorer Edward Mackley sets out to reach the North Pole and vanishes into the icy landscape without a trace. He leaves behind a young wife, Emily, who awaits his return for decades, her dreams and devotion gradually freezing into rigid widowhood. A hundred years later, on a sweltering mid-summer's day, Edward's great-grand-niece Julia moves through the old family house, attempting to impose some order on the clutter of inherited belongings and memories from that ill-fated expedition, and taking care to ignore the deepening cracks within her own marriage. But as afternoon turns into evening, Julia makes a discovery that splinters her long-held image of Edward and Emily's romance, and her husband Simon faces a precipitous choice that will decide the future of their relationship. Sharply observed and deeply engaging, The Still Point is a powerful literary debut, and a moving meditation on the distances - geographical and emotional - that can exist between two people.
Avg Rating
3.46
Number of Ratings
651
5 STARS
19%
4 STARS
33%
3 STARS
30%
2 STARS
13%
1 STARS
6%
goodreads
Author
Amy Sackville
Author · 4 books
Amy Sackville was born in 1981. She studied English and Theatre Studies at Leeds, and went on to an MPhil in English at Exeter College, Oxford, where she specialised in Modernism. After two years working for an illustrated books publisher, she chose to focus on writing fiction and in 2008, she completed the MA in Creative & Life Writing at Goldsmiths. She has had short stories published in anthologies from Fish Publishing and Leaf Books, and reviews and articles in various publications including The James Joyce Quarterly and The Oxonian Review of Books. She lives in West London. The Still Point is her first novel.
