Why a Booktrail?
2000s: A woman is washed up on a remote Greek island with no recollection of who she is or how she got there.
I know My Name
What you need to know before your trail
Lochlan’s wife has vanished into thin air, leaving their toddler and twelve-week-old baby alone. Her money, car and passport are all in the house, with no signs of foul play. Every clue the police turn up means someone has told a lie…
Does a husband ever truly know his wife? Or a wife know her husband? Why is Eloïse missing? Why did she forget?
The truth is found in these pages…
Travel Guide
The author visits Kommeno island
The island is fictional, and I called it Komméno, which roughly translates as ‘broken’.
Having travelled to Crete for a research trip during the writing period, my first representations of the island were paradisiacal (as Crete is!), but gradually I changed this to depict the island as a savage wilderness. Eloise is stranded there, after all, with only four dubious strangers for company and completely cut off from the main island. She can’t remember who she is, and the island works to evoke that sense of distressing detachment from an integral part of her identity. Logistics played a role, too: if I’d drawn Komméno as a haven of gold beaches and verdant pastures, the reader might have wondered why Eloise wanted to leave at all! Symbolically Komméno works to capture the fragmentation of her marriage to Lochlan and to convey her memory loss and subsequent recollections.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: I Know My Name
Destination: Crete, “Komméno Island”, London Author/Guide: C.J. Cooke Departure Time: 2000s
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