The story, the writing, the moral intelligence: all of it is a knock out'Christopher Tsiolkas, author of The SlapIn 1981 a mother abandoned her child and drove into the night, never to return.

'Close Your Eyes is an astonishing book. It manages to be both clear-eyed and harsh compassionate and just. It takes us right to the heart of the turbulent social changes that defined our last quarter century and it is a revealing honest searing novel about mothers and children about what it means to be part of a family. The story the writing the moral intelligence: all of it is a knock out' Christopher Tsiolkas author of The Slap In 1981 a mother abandoned her child and drove into the night never to return. Her disappearance was reported in the press as a fatal road accident. Her body was never found. Thirty years later Rowan has a child of her own. Afflicted by post-natal depression she is convinced that she'll hurt her daughter unless she unpicks the mystery of her past buried deep within a commune in the remote highlands of Scotland. Leaving her young family and life in London she returns to her childhood home to find a failed utopia shrouded in secrecy. And there with a looming cult leader among the rites and rituals the sacraments and ceremonies is a single postcard dated a week after her mother's death. As she draws ever closer to the truth about her mother she fears she might lose even herself.