Arianna, on the other hand, comes to Boney Point with her research partner, Tim, in order to release and track a group of glossy black cockatoos. But the cockatoos scatter rather than remain in their assigned location, and as Arianna loses control of the project, she succumbs to old and destructive habits. As a survivor of childhood trauma, Arianna feels safer alone than with others, and the novel’s remote setting reinforces this. Arianna is a wonderfully complex character. McKnight hints skilfully at her difficult past.

McKnight writes beautifully about people: in one of Pina’s memories of Alan ‘light spilt around the outline of him like water around a rock’, and a woman’s eyes are ‘creased like linen’. Descriptions of the natural environment are immersive: ‘the trees plaited themselves behind her like a closing jaw’. Relationships between men and women are particularly well rendered; Arianna’s relationship with Tim, for example, is overlaid with past wounds.

There is a heavy-handedness to the narrative at times, especially towards the end, when an unexpected event forces the two stories together. Nonetheless, McKnight writes about difficult emotions with grace and maturity.