No.4 Imperial Lane

A sweeping debut novel by New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman, NO. 4 IMPERIAL LANE tells of a little-known chapter of colonial history in a unique and moving coming-of-age story. In Thatcher's England, American David Heller is nearing the end of his year abroad in Brighton, where kids sport mohawks and light up to the Cocteau Twins. Not thrilled with having to leave his British girlfriend-or face his tragedy-wracked home-David takes a job working for Hans Bromwell, a helpless quadriplegic and fallen aristocrat. As David befriends Hans, his sister Elizabeth, and her daughter Cristina, the details behind the family's staggering fall from grace are exposed: How Elizabeth's love affair with a Portuguese physician carried the young, English girl right into the bloody battlefields of colonial Africa, where an entire continent bellowed for independence, and a single event left a family broken forever.