Behaviour of Moths

The Behaviour of Moths

by
Poppy Adams


Poppy Adams’ first novel is a dark and unusual tale of two elderly sisters being reunited after nearly fifty years apart.

Reclusive moth expert, Ginny Stone, 70, is waiting for her younger sister, Vivien, to return to Bulburrow Court - the crumbling Dorset mansion that was once their childhood home. Vivien hasn’t been back for forty-seven years, and Ginny rarely ventures outside. She’s sold off the family furniture, closed down most of the rooms and developed a precise routine. Only the attic remains untouched, where several generations of pinned and preserved moths line the walls.

Vivian’s arrival stirs up long-forgotten memories and secrets from the past, which threaten to disrupt Ginny’s carefully ordered life; the sudden death of their mother, their father’s obsessive behaviour and the strange pact she and Vivien made when they were young. Ginny grows suspicious of Vivien’s motives for coming back, and as they circle one another warily, the reader becomes aware that the sisters view their past in very different ways.

Alternating between past and present, The Behaviour of Moths is a story of nature versus nurture, obsession and misplaced perceptions. Scientific arguments are woven throughout the novel, in the examination of Ginny’s career as a lepidopterist, which suggest she is no more capable of avoiding her fate than a moth is of avoiding the flame that burns it.

The novel’s resolution doesn’t give a definitive answer, which won’t be to everyone’s satisfaction, but it’s still a riveting psychological study of families, and the things that they’re capable of doing to each other in the name of love.