A SHORT HISTORY OF LONGANS by Mirandi Riwoe

‘He feels a crease of disappointment, but it’s a mere fingerprint in a pie’s crust, one of the many dimples pressed into the soft dough of his soul.

That quote, from the exquisite opening paragraph in chapter one of Mirandi Riwoe’s A SHORT HISTORY OF LONGANS, sets the tone for this most sublime of novels.

Here’s another:

‘Her dear grandma, … white hair as soft as a dandelion you could gently blow upon to make a wish.’

The author invites us to understand the impeccably-rendered characters in a retrospective way. Each of them will live with me for some time, as will the fragile but enduring horse carving ‘the shade of a pair of riding boots’.