The Room of Lost Things

"Under his railway arch in Loughborough Junction, south London, Robert Sutton is taking leave of a lifetime of hard work. His dry-cleaning shop lies at the heart of a lively community, a fixed point in a changing world. And, as he explains to his successor, young east Londoner Akeel, it is also the resting place for the contents of his customers' pockets - and for their secrets and lies." "As he helps Akeel to make a new life out of his old one, Robert also hands on all he knows of his world: the dirty dip of the Thames; the parks, rare green oases in a desert of high-rises and decaying mansion blocks; and the varied lives that converge at the junction. There is restless Australian nanny Helen, trapped in London for love; tight-sweatered, high-heeled health visitor Marylin; ex-dancer and commitment-phobe Stefan on the cusp of middle-age; fixer, runner and all-round bad lad Dean. And there is Robert himself, who holds back his own terrible story, a secret he may never surrender." "The Room of Lost Things is a hymn of love to a great and overflowing city, and a profoundly human story that holds us in its grip from the first sentence until the last."--BOOK JACKET.

Prize history

• Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction

  2008

  Longlist