Night Visits

When Malcolm's father dies, he and his mother, Margaret, return to Margaret's childhood home in Edinburgh, which her sister has converted into a home for the elderly. While Malcolm retreats into a fantasy world where he cannot be hurt, but can feel no love, his aunt is trapped in a private hell of her own. Tortured by memories of her mother, she visits the bedsides of her elderly residents to enact a ritual of violence, guilt and redemption, night after night. Night Visits is a compulsive novel and a powerful depiction of the disturbing effects of lonellness and loss.