Never going home - a lyrical, impressionistic novel dissecting the effects of the past. On the night of a man's death, two women unravel the cruelties of their lives together and look to build a future from the ashes of the past. A husband and father lies dying in the night. By his side: his crushed and thwarted wife, Esther; and Sara, her corrupted daughter. Esther, paralysed by her complicity in her daughter's suffering, can only look back across the years of cruelty and abuse, picking over the events and choices that have led them both to this evening. Sara, whose trauma has forced her into an escapist dream world, must face the possibility that now her father is gone she will have to come out and confront the things that have been done to her. On the eve of their liberation from his terrible physical and emotional abuse, the two women must decide whether to accept new possibilities or conform to old values. The darkness, no matter how black, can never be complete. And from the wreckage of three broken lives the women must try to forge two more.