Between silence and silence

"From the vantage point of later middle life, Ian McDonald's collection looks into the heart of time passing: the coming death of ageing parents, the old men, the 'archive' of a disappearing Guyana who die one by one, the sight of 'my own lines of age' and the loss of pleasure in the glittering carnival of the senses. There are rich blessings of the arrival of a new child coming unexpected at this stage of life; and the consolations from books and in the power of art to preserve - at least for a time. But the very joys are made more piquant by the inescapable sense of the transitoriness of all things"--Back cover.