One Small Moment 
Christopher Tayler
Michael Frayn’s new novel is a loss-of-innocence story in which an elderly narrator is prompted to disinter long-buried memories of a particular time and place. Slowly at first, a narrative begins to emerge: a golden summer, a semi-rural idyll, the first stirrings of adolescence. Rather than having a poignant romance with someone close to his own age, though, the protagonist becomes embroiled in adult affairs which he is ill-equipped to understand. Childish misapprehensions unearth grown-up betrayals, with unhappy results for everyone concerned; and the narrator is left with a lifelong unease that can only be confronted and examined from the perspective of old age.
Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.
Other articles by this contributor:
Belgravia Cockney · being a le Carré bore
High on His Own Supply · Amis Recycled
Genderbait for the Nerds · William Gibson
But Little Bequalmed · Louis de Bernières’s Decency
A Bit of a Lush · William Boyd
print layout
tell a friend