From the author of 26a, comes a dazzling new novel about the fight to achieve one's dream, and an unsolved disappearance at the heart of a family.
As a child Lucas assumed that all children who'd lost their parents lived on water. Now a restless young man, and still sharing the West London narrowboat with his sister Denise, he secretly investigates the contents of an old wardrobe, in which he finds relics from the Midnight Ballet, an influential black dance company of the 1960s founded by his Jamaican father, the charismatic Antoney Matheus.
In his search to unravel the legacy of the Midnight Ballet, Lucas hears of hot-house rehearsals in an abandoned Notting Hill church, of artistic battles and personal betrayals, and a whirlwind European tour. Most importantly, Lucas learns about his parents' passionate and tumultuous relationship and of the events that led to his father's final disappearance.
Vividly conjuring the world of 1950s Kingston, Jamaica, the Blues parties and early carnivals of Ladbroke Grove, the flower stalls and vinyl riflers of modern-day Portobello Road, and the famous leap and fall of Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, Diana Evans creates a haunting and visceral family mystery about absence and inheritance, the battle between love and creativity, and what drives a young man to take flight... "A serious work of art... Evans was born to write this novel... The Wonder's most central achievement is to explore what art means in human life... This second novel, both powerful and delicate ... proves that Evans has what she calls 'the watch-me, the grace note' that marks a true artist."
- The Independent (UK) Diana Evans was a dancer before she became a writer and critic. Her first novel, 26a, received a Betty Trask Award, a nomination for the Guardian First Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Best First Book and Whitbread First Novel of the Year awards. It was also the inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers. She lives in London. Chapter One
One day scientists found something strange out in space. This thing was pulling millions of galaxies towards it, one of them is the Milky Way which is ours, but the scientists couldn't see the thing because it was hidden behind lots of dust. They thought "this thing must be huge to pull all these galaxies towards it, and we are getting pulled towards it really fast, it is at millions of miles per hour, but it could be anything, nobody knows, it is a mystery." They thought "this is strange, this is scary" and then they said "I know, let's call the thing the Great Attractor."
The great Attractor is pulling us right now. I think it is probably a huge black hole, because black holes eat everything, they even eat light so you can't ever see them, they look just like a piece of really dark night. One day I bet there will be a big disaster, we will go nearer and nearer and then suddenly we will get pulled right in. It will be like a big hand gets us so we will vanish, because nothing can get out of a black hole you see, we will be stuck there for ever. It is strange to think that every day, every minute we are all being pulled towards the Great Attractor but hardly anybody knows. People go about their ordinary every day lives, they have toast for breakfast and go to school, they watch their favorite programs on the telly and they never even guess.
We were coming back from the supermarket, we went to a further away one where we never went before so it would be all right, and it was an adventure mum said, we must be really quick, we must be like birds diving down and getting some food and flying away with it in their mouths. It was fun, actually, we got our cart and we almost ran, we just grabbed all the tins and packets and milk and tinfoil etc etc. Then Jemima saw some sweets in a little purple tin and she said "oh I want them, I need them, please mum." Mum said "don't be silly no
