“In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals.” This is the opening line of Michael Ondaatje’s haunting new novel, Warlight.

The story follows the lives of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel and his sixteen-year-old sister Rachel as they try to survive in wartime England. Much of the novel takes place at night as the characters navigate blackout conditions. What does the darkness conceal, what does it reveal, and who are all these people?