Not going to London to visit the Queen

It is a pleasure to encounter a new writer, particularly if that writer is modest, competent, and above all unheralded. Frances Itani is Canadian and recognisably from the same background as Alice Munro, although lacking Munro’s wistfulness and emotional delicacy. She is unknown in this country, although the author of a previous novel. On the strength of Remembering the Bones she has it in her to reach a wider audience.

Her story is simple. Her protagonist, Georgina Danforth Witley, has been invited to Buckingham Palace, one of a handful of Commonwealth citizens who share their birthday with that of the Queen. Her house is locked up, her suitcase is in the car, and she is on her way to the airport when she collides with another car and is knocked over a cliff into a ravine into which few passers-by will venture. The car, its door open, stays on the road, and since she is seriously disabled, remains out of reach.