The ostensible subject matter of Audrey Thomas' book is familiar to her readers. Like many of her short stories, Blown Figures explores the blurred edges of sanity and madness; its protagonist Isobel, relives the experiences of Mrs. Blood, returning to Africa in search of the child she had miscarried there five years earlier. This journey into the past to face its horrors and bury its corpses is a familiar literary convention. But there is nothing reassuring about Thomas' handling of it just as there is nothing comforting in the landmarks of the story. Blown Figures, the title, refers as much to the effect on the reader as it does to the treatment of the subject and the structure of the book.

Rarely have I encountered a book which 'blew my mind' in quite this way. Most mothers will share Isobel's death obsessions as she remembers her miscarriage, its...