Fergus is in a rest home, recovering from a stroke. He has lost significant chunks of his memory, a fact that greatly annoys Fergus’ ex-wife. He’s forgotten all the philandering and the deceit, and the business failures. However, even though she rants about the Fergus before the stroke, she visits him regularly and they talk “like the couple they wish they’d been”.
Sabrina, their only child, is a lifeguard at a swanky retirement village. She is struggling with day-to-day life – despite having a husband and children she loves, and a job she enjoys, she feels in a state of limbo. When Sabrina gets a phone call from her father’s rest home telling her that some boxes containing his belongings have been delivered there, she drives out to retrieve them. And when she takes them home and unpacks them, she discovers a collection of marbles. Precious, beautiful and – judging from the inventory – valuable marbles.
Sabrina is stunned. Her father has never spoken about this collection or expressed an interest in marbles. She decides to find out where the marbles have come from, and in doing so, discovers another father.
A man she never knew with another life she was never a part of. The story is told from Fergus’ point of view and from Sabrina’s. Fergus’ memories cover decades whereas Sabrina’s voyage of discovery takes place over just 24 hours – when her husband and three children have gone away to watch the total solar eclipse, leaving Sabrina alone for the first time in years.
Her determination to get to the bottom of the mystery of the marbles doesn’t just help her understand her father – it helps move her on from the limbo she’s living in.
Cecelia Ahern says she came up with the idea for the novel because she always felt like she was losing her marbles, juggling work and family life. What started as a light-hearted idea about a woman actually looking for the marbles she lost became a story about how little we sometimes know the people we love.
The Marble Collector by Cecelia Ahern, HarperCollins, RRP $32.99.
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