Careless

Pearl and Riley closed the door behind them. From inside they could hear their mother crying. They were four storeys in the air and it was a hot day. She was eight, he was five. Riley's lips quivered. 'What will we do?' he said. She looked down. And then she smiled for him the madonna of all smiles; serene and consoling, a smile so at odds with her own true feelings that only a grown woman should be capable of it." In the midst of her life with her small brother and unpredictable mother, Pearl is a child who strives to get things right. But the events of one summer's day are about to change her life, and nothing may ever be right again. In ways connected but unforeseen, this child's tragedy will also enter the lives of two strangers. Sonia lives in a cooler, greener part of the city, where she is learning to live alone after the death of her famous husband. And at the edge of the city, close to the beaches, in a run-down building, the young sculptor Adam Logan contemplates the celebrity that his artwork has brought to him.

Prize history

• Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction

  2007

  Longlist