'It doesn't feel very all right.'

'That's because it's not the end.'

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Nadeem Aslam, Eleanor Bailey, Jocasta Brownlee, Amber Burlinson, Evan Camfield, Lynn Cannici, Tadhg Casey, Stuart Coughlan, Louise Dennys, Walter Donohue, Maveeda Duncan and her daughter, David Ebershoff, Keith Gray, Rodney Hall, Ian Jack, Henry Jeffreys, Sharon Klein, Kerr's Bookshop in Clonakilty, Hari Kunzru, Morag and Tim Joss, Toby Litt, Jynne Martin, Jan Montefiore, Lawrence Norfolk, Jonathan Pegg, Nic Rowley, Shaheeda Sabir, Michael Schellenberg, Eleanor Simmons, Rory and Diane Snookes, Doug Stewart, Carole Welch and the White-Haired Lady of Hay-on-Wye who advised me to keep the rabbit, which nonetheless escaped from the final manuscript.

Special thanks to my parents and Keiko.

A distant ancestor of the first chapter appeared in Granta 81. A recent ancestor of the second chapter appeared in New Writing 13 (Picador). The fifth chapter was researched with reference to The Battle for the Falklands by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins (Pan Books, 1997). The eighth chapter quotes from Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier (Librairie Fayard, 1971). The ninth chapter quotes from Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Faber Faber, 1954) with permission. The novel owes debts of detail to Andrew Collins's memoir Where Did It All Go Right? (Ebury Press, 2003).

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