Hand Me Down World

Book excerpt: Haunting and beautiful, Hand Me Down World is the simply unforgettable story by the multi-award winning author of Mister Pip. A woman washes ashore in Sicily. She has come from north Africa to find her son, taken from her when he was just days old by his father and stolen away to Berlin. With nothing but her maid's uniform and a knife stashed in a plastic bag, she relies on strangers to guide her passage north. These strangers tell of their encounters with a quiet, mysterious woman in a blue coat each account a different view of the truth. And slowly these fragments of a life piece together to create a spellbinding story of the courage of a mother and the versions of truth we create to accommodate our lives. There are no easy answers in this thoughtful novel. Indeed, much of its intrigue and enjoyment comes from piecing together the story from the myriad voices. Humane and moving, it's a worthy successor to Jones's last novel, the Booker-shortlisted Mister Pip. Daily Mail