Lesson one on his expedition: even though Martin cannot remember a thing about his life before the accident, he sees that he’d been living with a group of strangers who don’t even realise he is suffering from amnesia. As he slowly learns about his life and the type of man he was, Martin is both horrified and repulsed. He cannot reconcile the bitter, selfish, philandering and depressed man he was to the man he feels himself capable of becoming or being.

The narrative moves along briskly and cleverly in this well-written and immensely readable novel. Martin is an engaging character, and his genuine desire to change and to recapture the best of his past while proceeding gingerly with his life is touching. It is a pity that Humphreys does not explore the novel’s central, weighty philosophical issues: how one’s sense of identity is forged, how the battle between nature and nurture plays out, and at what point becoming evolves into being. These questions remain nebulous, like so many meandering kites in the sky.