Author: richardbeard

“Spellbinding, terrifying, deeply moving” — an unflinching portrait of a family’s silent grief, and the tragic death of a brother not spoken about for forty years (Joanna Rakoff). On a family summer holiday in Cornwall in 1978, Richard and his younger brother Nicholas are jumping in the waves. Suddenly, Nicholas is out of his depth. One moment he’s there, the next he’s gone. Richard and his … gone. Richard and his other brothers don’t attend the funeral, and incredibly the family returns immediately to the same cottage — to complete the holiday, to carry on, in the best British tradition.…