Black Dirt

A beautiful and haunting exploration of the ties and tensions within a family. With characters as diverse as Christ, the red-breasted robin and kings Arthur and Alfred, Black Dirt is the story of Frank - and the stories he tells George and Margaret, his adult children. Lying ill in bed, Frank finds his dying dreams haunted by figures from his his parents, and his older sister Iris, whose existence - and terrible crime - he has spent long years struggling to forget.Revealing the dark and sinister shadows that can shape a child's imagination, Nell Leyshon explores the boundaries of fantasy, where the familiar happy-ever-after ending of the fold-tales and fairy-stories is far from certain.