Excerpt from Tenderness by Alison MacLeod, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

His lungs burned hotter. He gaped like a fish. On the wall, a painting – a copy of a Raphael – of the Virgin gazed down at him in his struggle.

He knew those eyes. He knew them—

The English nurse was passing him a fresh cup of water. 'Mrs Lawrence and her daughter,' she ventured, 'left for the market an hour ago.'

He had no reply. His ribs ached.

She persuaded him to stand, or rather to stoop and cling, to rinse his clammy face at the basin and brush his teeth. In the square mirror, he re-assembled himself slowly: the mud-red hair, the potato nose, the narrow chin covered by its tawny beard, the small yellowing teeth, and the flattened, flushed plains of his cheeks. It was, he told himself, a mongrel face, a plebeian face, distinguished only by the deep-set challenge of his eyes.

He noted, with a curious sort of disinterest, that his pupils were wide – dilated presumably with fever – and he turned to look through the French doors, past the balcony to the olive trees and the indifferent sea. Then he collapsed into bed once more, and his nurse proceeded to trim his beard and hair.

Other women had seen to him in this way: his mother, his sister Ada

– Frieda couldn't be trusted with scissors – and once, only once, R. Almost a decade ago already – how was it possible?

Excerpted from Tenderness by Alison MacLeod. Copyright © 2021 by Alison MacLeod. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.