Natural Elements

In this moving, layered novel of memory and family, celebrated author Richard Mason tells the story of a mother and daughter, one caught in the past, one racing toward the future.
 
Joan is eighty years old, a gifted amateur pianist who can no longer play because of her arthritic hands. Joan€s daughter, Eloise, is an ambitious hedge fund manager who has decided to move her mother to an assisted-living facility. As a last hurrah, Eloise plans a trip to Joan€s childhood home in South Africa. What Joan discovers there summons long-buried secrets and opens up an entirely new world. Natural Elements is a dazzling tale of history and longing, and the high-stakes, full-tilt embrace of life.