In London, in 1976, a record-breaking heat wave makes everyone uncomfortable and on edge. One morning, Gretta Riordan discovers that her newly retired husband, Robert, has cleaned out his bank account and disappeared. Maggie O'Farrell (After You'd Gone; The Hand that First Held Mine) starts Instructions for a Heatwave with this premise, then takes readers on journeys interior and exterior--recounted in flawless prose that will have you reading while strap-hanging, standing in line or waiting at a stop light.
Gretta calls upon her three children--Michael Francis, Monica and Aoife--to help her suss out what happened. The baggage they bring is not in suitcases. History teacher Michael Francis is perpetually disappointed that he had to cut his Ph.D. studies short to provide when his wife became inconveniently pregnant, and she knows it. Everyone loved Monica's first husband, Joe, but he left her when he found out that she did something he found unforgivable; now she's married to a distracted antiques dealer whose two daughters loathe her.
Problem child Aoife is bright, intuitive and creative, but she still can't read, and has arranged her life so that no one knows. She's been in New York for the last three years, estranged from her sister, Monica, all this time--for the same reason Joe left Monica. Gretta, meanwhile, is hooked on pills given to her by helpful doctors; still, she keeps herself together most of the time.
Long-held personal and family secrets are unearthed when they all go to Ireland because someone has seen Robert there. Gretta knows more than she has ever told anyone--even Robert--but all is revealed. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.