Belonging

Scottish drifter Jack McCall, handyman in an Alpine ski resort, spends his days sneaking into the empty penthouses of the super-rich with his partner Anna, sipping champagne and partying in private jacuzzis. At 29, Jack's unsure of what he wants from life, but Anna wants commitment.

Scottish drifter Jack McCall, handyman in an Alpine ski resort, spends his days sneaking into the empty penthouses of the super-rich with his partner Anna, sipping champagne and partying in private jacuzzis. At 29, Jack's unsure of what he wants from life, but Anna wants commitment. Then one night a man slips on a frozen balcony in a nearby apartment and dies from his injuries. Only one person saw what happened - the man's lover Therese, a quiet French girl with firework-coloured hair. Looking back, Jack remembers his first sight of Therese as the moment things started to go wrong...Ron Butlin's third novel descends into a 21st century heart of darkness as Jack gravitates first to Paris, then to a hippy commune in Spain's parched northern wilderness, where the subsistence idyll is ultimately shattered by violence, infidelity and death. Amid a society overshadowed by threats of terrorism and natural disasters, Ron Butlin's characters struggle to put down roots, and pass through ice and fire to achieve redemption - and finally, a kind of belonging.