The Singing Tree

Hardy's youthful moment of panic had revealed to him the void at the center of what he had taken to be his values. He longs for punishment but has evaded it until now, when he openly courts an expiatory act. "In his first novel, Peter Moss has Hardy tell his tale with economy and precision, leading us through a moral landscape as tangled as the Amazon wilderness. Even the touch of sentimentality toward the end tells us much about Hardy, and the unobtrusive ambiguity at the close provides just the right touch of muted dissonance. The Singing Tree is a little gem."--Frank Wilson, New York Times