Laura en haar twee kinderen knappen een vervallen huis net buiten het stadje Gost op. Lauras man blijft voor zijn werk in Engeland en daarom helpt buurman Duro het vakantiehuis bewoonbaar te maken. Met zijn twee jachthonden heeft hij het lege huis jarenlang in de gaten gehouden. Uit de onrust die Laura in het stadje veroorzaakt blijkt dat de bewoners van Gost niets moeten hebben van buitenstaanders. Langzaam wordt duidelijk dat Duro oude banden heeft met het huis, waarover een donkere schaduw hangt.
Baltimora, dicembre 1941, il giorno dell’attacco a Pearl Harbor. La città è in preda all’agitazione, la gente scende in piazza, i giovani corrono ad arruolarsi e una graziosa ragazza, avvolta in un cappotto rosso, entra per caso nella bottega del giovane Michael Anton, nel quartiere polacco della città. Quell’incontro fortuito segnerà per sempre le loro vite. I due sembrano fatti l’uno per l’altra, tanto che quasi subito decidono di sposarsi; in realtà sono molto diversi: lui, razionale, concreto e introverso; lei, allegra, generosa e irrimediabilmente sognatrice. Ma il matrimonio, i figli e le responsabilità li distolgono dalle riflessioni sul loro rapporto, sino a quando una sera, nell’intimità della camera da letto, i problemi irrisolti della loro lunga unione affiorano impietosamente. Nel commosso racconto dei sentimenti e delle vicende quotidiane, Anne Tyler, scrittrice finissima nel cogliere le sfumature dei caratteri e dei gesti dei suoi personaggi, ci restituisce la storia di una vicenda coniugale, colta nelle sue molteplici sfumature e nella sua complessa e drammatica verità.
For Neville "Bunt" Mullard and his mother, Betty, Hong Kong is part of Britain - one of the pleasanter parts; it is also cozy, monotonous, profitable, and homely. Now ninety-nine years of colonial rule are about to end, and the British government is about to hand over Hong Kong to China. Betty and Bunt can see China from their parlor, but they have never been there. They detest Chinese food. "The Chinese take-away, " as they call the Hand-over, does not particularly concern them. When Bunt first meets Mr. Hung, a well-spoken gentleman from the Chinese mainland, he pays him little heed. And when Mr. Hung offers the Mullards a handsome sum for their family business - a fifty-year-old textile factory, Imperial Stitching, that was cofounded by Bunt's late father - Bunt refuses him out of hand. Yet it soon grows clear that Mr. Hung is different from the Chinese the Mullards have lived alongside for years. For Mr. Hung will accept no refusals. Then a young woman from the Mullards' factory vanishes, one of many disappearances. But this one is different. Ah Fu has last been seen in the company of Mr. Hung. And so Bunt is forced for the first time in his forty-three years to make decisions that matter. He even begins, maybe, to discover love. Yet against all of Bunt's good, if half-formed, intentions are pitted the will of Mr. Hung and the looming threat of the ultimate betrayal.
