Description

When Ben Masters’ father, a dedicated naturalist, is confined to the house with inoperable cancer, he is unable to follow the butterfly season for the first time since his childhood. His son must become his connection to the outdoors, reporting back on his beloved Purple Emperors, Lulworth Skippers, Wood Whites and Silver-studded Blues. The problem is, his son knows practically nothing about the natural world.

Blending natural history, pop culture, and literary biography, this unforgettable memoir charts a terminal summer when butterflies become a way for father and son to talk about masculinity, memory, identity, generational differences, and, ultimately, loss and continuation.

The Flitting takes readers on an unlikely journey, flitting between the lives and works of Vladimir Nabokov and other literary lepidopterists; the artistic metamorphoses of Prince and Joni Mitchell; butterflies and gender in Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter and The Sopranos; the voices of John Clare and Luther Vandross. These diverse subjects come together in an intensely authentic portrait of a father and son sharing passions, lessons and regrets as they run out of time.

Publisher Review

A masterwork. You will exit this book more curious, more thoughtful about the world, more capable of a wide breadth of feeling — Hanif Abdurraqib Reading The Flitting is like following a meandering butterfly through the woods. There is purpose and power in the detours, beauty in the quiet moments, and satisfaction in articulating the invisible thread we grasp to honour love, loss, and legacy. A lyrical tribute to the power of connection — Sara Dykman, author of Bicycling with Butterflies A dance and a dazzle of a book; at once a moving father-son memoir and the flicker-flitter story of a butterfly chase, in all its actual and metaphorical vibrancy. It tells of a life lost and a worldview discovered, in a voice that beautifully balances lightness and cleverness — Robert Macfarlane A heartfelt and moving memoir of fathers and fritillaries, bereavement and Brimstones, and the solace and wonder to be found in the natural world — Patrick Barkham, author of The Butterfly Isles