Instructions for a Heatwave (a first printing)

It’s July 1976. In London, it hasn’t rained in months. Gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife, Gretta, that he is going around the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn’t return.

The search for Robert brings Gretta’s three children back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share. A journey back to Connemara, Ireland, brings surprises, insights, and revelations, as each confronts the knotty triangle of family life and love.

Elegant and compelling, Instructions for a Heatwave secures Maggie O’Farrell’s position as one of the best of the new generation of British writers.