Warlight

The novel begins with first-person narrator Nathaniel Williams and his account of his childhood in London. In 1945, shortly after World War II, Nathaniel’s parents relocate to Asia for a year for his father’s work. Nathaniel, 14, and his older sister, Rachel, 16, are left behind under the care of their parents’ colleague, a shy lodger they nickname the Moth. The children suspect that The Moth has a criminal background, but they accept the unusual arrangement as part of postwar life. Nathaniel’s mother, Rose, stays until the end of the summer to prepare the children for boarding school and later joins her husband in Singapore.

On his last weekend with his father, Nathaniel visits his office at Unilever. His father switches on a relief map on the wall and lights up the cities and ports where the company conducts business. Nathaniel spends the final weeks with his mother listening to radio programs and performing plays. Rose has pet names for her children; Nathaniel is “Stitch” and Rachel is “Wren.” She tells them stories about her childhood in the Saints, an area of Suffolk. Their favorite tale is about a boy named Marsh who fell off her parents’ roof and broke his hip.