"From the blood-soaked streets of 1870 siege of Paris, to the student riots of the 1960s, from a barren, windswept Australian desert landscape to the appalling penal colonies of 19th century New Caledonia, Deception tells an epic, dramatic and sweeping story. It is a novel about history and memory, and how the passage of time means that fiction is the only reliable historical record because it takes in all aspects of experience - not just dry facts, but all possible shades of meaning. Fiction imagines all in relationship to the present, and emotionally relates the present to the past - each aspect breathing life into the other. The story is told though the experiences of Nick, a young Australian student in Paris in search of lost memories. His great-great grandfather was a Communard, deported to Noumea in the 1870's for his role in the siege of Paris. Nick's only connection to his ancestor is his great grandmother Agnes' patchy memories, and a mysterious old manuscript written in French. From the blood-soaked streets of 1870 siege of Paris, to the student riots of the 1960s, from a barren, windswept Australian desert landscape to the appalling penal colonies of 19th Century New Caledonia, Deception tells an epic, dramatic and sweeping story. It is a novel about history and memory, and how the passage of time means that fiction is the only reliable historical record because it takes in all aspects of experience - not just dry facts, but all possible shades of meaning. Fiction imagines all in relationship to the present, and emotionally relates the present to the past - each aspect breathing life into the other. The story is told though the experiences of Nick, a young Australian student in Paris in search of lost memories. His great-great grandfather was a Communard, deported to Noumea in the 1870s for his role in the siege of Paris. Nick's only connection to his ancestor is his great grandmother Agnes' patchy memories, and a mysterious old manuscript written in French. meet Agnes' sisters - principally Colette, the eldest and sharpest of the trio of which one is dotty, the other too ill to speak. Only Colette can answer his questions. Slowly, fragments are collected and recollected, till the entire story is unearthed, but not without the pain that seems to cling to the bad memories, disinterred from the dark silence of a half-forgotten past. This is a beautifully written, evocative historical novel in the ambitious tradition of such classics of the genre as Possession and Perfume."--Provided by publisher.