BY THE ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF THE HANDMAID'S TALE'Irresistible . . . This book is about life for all of us. She is one of our finest novelists. Read it' THE TIMES'Fantastic writing . . . a sharp study of a very female torture' GUARDIANElaine Risley, a painter, returns to Toronto to find herself overwhelmed by her past. Memories of childhood - unbearable betrayals and cruelties - surface relentlessly, forcing her to confront the spectre of Cordelia, once her best friend and tormentor, who has haunted her for forty years. 'Nightmarish, evocative, heartbreaking' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'A brilliant, three-dimensional mosaic' BOSTON GLOBE'The best book in a long time on female friendships . . . remarkable, funny and serious, brimming with uncanny wisdom' COSMOPOLITAN