It was as if I had lost some special capacity to filter my own perceptions, one that I had only become aware of once it was no longer there … I was beginning to see my own fears and desires manifested outside myself, was beginning to see in other people’s lives a commentary on my own.

Following a divorce, Faye turns inward and becomes absent from her exterior life – it hurts less than being present. An English writer, her narrative picks up as she embarks on a journey to Greece, where she will te...