ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE BRITISH WRITERS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

'The lyrical, sensuous quality . . . puts her immediately into the front rank of English writers' THE TIMES

'It will consume you . . . transforming your whole inner life for the time it takes to read' JONATHAN COE

'There are qualities in this book that mark it out as quite the most striking first novel of this generation' SUNDAY TIMES

'Mamma was fast asleep at home, her spirit lapped in unconsciousness. Her dreams would not divine that her daughter had stolen out to meet a lover.
And next door also they slept unawares, while one of them broke from the circle and came alone to clasp a stranger . . . '

Judith Earle, over-earnest and inexperienced, has always been a little in love with each of the four cousins who come to stay next door and, on her return from Cambridge, becomes madly in love with one of them - Roddy, the 'sensation-hunter'. Dusty Answer traces with delicate nostalgia childhood friendships and the pangs of thwarted young love. This novel is about Judith's consuming relationship with the Fyfe family, who each fall in love with Judith, transforming her young womanhood.