Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2017

Professor Frederick Lothian, retired engineer, world expert on concrete and connoisseur of modernist design, has quarantined himself from life by moving to a retirement village. His wife, Martha, is dead and his two adult children are lost to him in their own ways. Surrounded and obstructed by the debris of his life - objects he has collected over many years and tells himself he is keeping for his daughter - he is determined to be miserable, but is tired of his existence and of the life he has chosen.

When a series of unfortunate incidents forces him and his sharp-eyed neighbour, Jan, together, Frederick Lothian has the chance to realise the damage done by the accumulation of a lifetime’s secrets and lies, and to comprehend his own shortcomings. Can he finally build something meaningful for the ones he loves?