Chemistry

'Chemistry is a work of quietly cumulative power - an absorbing and morally eloquent look at the small decisions and accidents that turn each life, a book that is wonderfully funny, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and moving.' -Elizabeth Knox, author of The Vintner's LuckJamie has got a kidney stone. Great news. There'll be surgery and a few days in hospital. A few days of unparalleled access to all manner of pharmaceuticals. But when the hospital stay doesn't quite work out as planned, Jamie decides he must go somewhere he hasn't been in years - home, where his brother happens to be a chemist and his sister a doctor. Perfect. And if all else fails, his insomniac mother has plenty of valerian in her cupboards.But Jamie's family has their own set of problems. So do Sally, a young mother on the methadone program and Shane, a junkie who wakes up one morning with a tattoo covering half his face. In a desperate bid to improve their lives, Sally and Shane embark on a blackmail plot that entangles all of them. Freeing themselves isn't easy. Chemistry is about bad choices and their consequences. Funny, brilliant and dark, it moves with great force to an unexpected and eloquent conclusion.Pr;' Colm T ib n'Wilkins reminds me of some of the great American writers-Faulkner, Lowry, Richard Ford - where the simple story you are apparently reading deepens and broadens and throws out layers and shadows, and you are conscious of an underwater life and a sky overhead, but all the time you are immersed in what seems a limpid, even transparent medium.' Evening Post