A grounded yet playful collection from an assured poet, flexing his muscles into newer territory. As well as the deep lineage of rural landscapes that populated previous collections, here Johnstone treats us to an extended trip to the circus, where the glitz and thrill of the big top and its stunts are peeled back.
Family revelations prompt Brian Johnstone to turn a poet's eye on his 1950s childhood and explore his parents' lives before and during World War II. In a memoir sure to resonate with baby-boomers and anyone who has lost and found unknown relatives, Brian vividly evokes a post-war upbringing, under whose conventional surface so much was hidden.