Since this is a work of fiction, I have permitted myself certain inexactitudes. For example, the Soho Waiters’ Race does not immediately precede the Soho Ball.
The setting is obviously real, as are most of the streets, although some are not....
Abel Jackson's boyhood belongs to a vanishing world. On an idyllic stretch of coast whose waters teem with fish, he lives a simple, tough existence. It's just him and his mother in the house at Longboat Bay, but Abel has friends in the sea,...