Eating Air — Pauline Melville

An attraction to danger prompts Ella de Vries, a stunning obsidian-eyed beauty who dances with the Royal Ballet, to fall in love with Donny McLeod, the Dionysiac rebel and free spirit who 'believes in nothing'. It is the 1970s. They move into a household of political radicals and become casually drawn into extremism. Special Branch infiltration leads to a violent crime that sends Ella into self-imposed exile in Brazil. Donny goes wandering. Over thirty years later Ella returns. The economy is in freefall. A new kind of terrorist is active. The unruly nature of love re-unites her with Hector, a former housemate torn over whether to make common cause with Islamic extremists in attacking a bank. When Donny reappears, Ella becomes the catalyst for a series of events the final outcome of which is as shocking as it is unexpected. Comic and frightening, satirical and poetic, Eating Air is Pauline Melville's most audacious work yet.