Books
The Drowning Pool
Jago’s life is dominated by an overbearing father, a dead brother and another man’s wife.
Synopsis
Jago's life is dominated by an overbearing father, a dead brother and another man's wife. His father blames Jago for his brother's death. Jago accepts this irrational interpretation of the fishing accident as a simple mechanism that allows his father to cope. At the heart of the novel are two intense relationships. Working together with his father, scratching a living, fishing for lobsters off the Cornish coast, arguing as they work. The one release for Jago is Diane and a fling that quickly developed into the most intense of love affairs. All this despite her upcoming marriage to Henry. Despite their many differences, Jago believes that Diane saved him from becoming emotionally numb to the world around him. Diane is spiky, exasperating, awkward and Jago loves her. She succeeded in making Jago confront the denial about his brother's death and for the first time in years, he talked openly about the tragedy. Whenever they met, it was always an intense, unspeaking coming together and Jago wanted it to last forever. But this affair ended as Diane always said it would and she married her mostly absentee fiancée.
Thirteen years later, Jago slightly drunk at a party, bumped into Diane and her husband. Diane played the whole scene beautifully, cool and in control. Jago less so, distracted by her beauty and the belligerent husband, staring hard at him, unspeaking throughout the brief exchange.
Days later something so shocking crashed into Jago's life and two families began a scandalous fracture.