Motherland

William Nicholson's novel may start by treating love as it is generally treated in books and movies — as an impulse or a stroke of lightning — but as the sprawling tale proceeds love takes on aspects more complicated and fraught. The story contains a brilliant set-piece on the failed British landing in Dieppe in 1942 and plenty of historical color from India and Jamaica. The characters struggle through traumas, thwarted desires, and loss, and do not shrink from addressing moral and religious dilemmas directly. This, as in Nicholson's earlier Sussex novels, is a breath of fresh air in a world of literary fiction that can be obtuse and petulantly ironic.