This is the first of Ondaatje's novels that I have read since THE ENGLISH PATIENT won the Booker Prize in 2011. Nathaniel and Rachel's parents announce one summer day in postwar London that they are going to Singapore, leaving the two behind, to be looked after by two lodgers, the Darter and the Moth. Both grow up protected by the arms of strangers though participating in the lodgers illicit activities having to do with greyhounds and betting. The novel jumps to 1959 when Nathaniel is 28 and the rest of the book attempts to solve the riddle of his mother Rose, her childhood, disappearance and reappearance, the scars Nathaniel glimpses on her arms. "No one really understands another's life or even death, " Nathaniel gradually understands as he unravels the mystery of his parents' lives. ****
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