Andrew O'Hagan's fifth novel is a beautiful, deeply charged story about love and memory, about modern war and the complications of fact.

How much do we keep from the people we love? Why is the truth so often buried in secrets? Can we learn from the past or must we forget it?

Standing one evening at the window of her house by the sea, Anne Quirk sees a rabbit disappearing in the snow. Nobody remembers her now, but this elderly woman was in her youth a pioneer of British documentary photography. Her beloved grandson, Luke, now a captain with the Royal Western Fusiliers, is on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, part of a convoy taking equipment to the electricity plant at Kajaki. Only when Luke returns home to Scotland does Anne's secret story begin to emerge, along with his, and they set out for an old guest house in Blackpool where she once kept a room.

Interesante experimento literario cuyo narrador y protagonista es un terrier maltes de nombre Maf, abreviatura de Mafia Money, un divertidisimo perro con pedigrí regalo de Frank Sinatra a Marilyn Monroe para consolarla tras su separación del dramaturgo Arthur Miller. Maf, especialmente charlatán y culto, es el mejor amigo de Marilyn y asiste con ella a las sesiones del psicoanalista, a la peluquería y a numerosas fiestas. Tampoco la abandona en su ingreso en la clínica Payne Whitney o en su viaje a Mexico. Por las paginas del libro pasean Frank Sinatra, Duncan Grant, Nathalie Wood, Carson McCullers, George Cukor, Orwell y un largo etcetera junto a los que Maf asistirá a los dos ultimos años de vida de la malograda actriz. A traves de la mirada de Maf podemos ver un hábil retrato lleno de originalidad y belleza de la mujer que se escondía detras del icono