Rosemarie leaned her weight on the big kitchen knife w ith blind efficiency. No one wanted to know the real secrets,\ not the really big ones. And, she thought emphatically, I don't want anyone to know mine! On Christmas Eve in 1967, a London woman unhappily transplanted to the Austral ian suburbs makes a decision that will change forever the lives of her four young children. Forty years on, those children are adept at concealing their shared pain. Deborah has a demanding political career, James is a successful artist, Robert a respected school principal. Only Meredith, the baby of the family seems struck. But as their father begins to lose his grip on reality, they find themselves floundering i n an unfamiliar sea. And their past is about to reach into t he present in ways that will shock and challenge them all . . . A spellbinding contemporary novel, Listendraws us deep into the intensely private world of family life and brilliantly illuminates the joys, sorrows and sustaining comfort that we find there.