'You can survive more than you'd believe; Dad had told me that. He'd also told me you can survive more than you want; but it's not always up to you, not the enormous things, those are beyond all control...'

When her father becomes gravely ill on holiday in Budapest, Alexandra Fuller rushes to join her mother at his bedside, where they see out his last days together and then carry his ashes back to their farm in Zambia.

A master of time and memory, Fuller moves seamlessly between the days and months following her father's death. She contends with his overwhelming absence, and her memories of a childhood spent running after him in southern and central Africa. She then faces seemingly irreparable family fallout, new love found and lost, and, eventually, further unimaginable bereavement.

Bursting with pandemonium and tragedy, here is a story of joy, resilience and vitality, from a writer at the very height of her powers.