Darkness Visible

During the London Blitz, a badly burned child walks alive from a bombed building and is taken into care. Matty grows into a scarred and isolated man whose literal reading of religious signs gives his life the shape of a private mission. His search for meaning carries him through wartime destruction and post-war Britain, where others respond to his appearance with fear, pity or exploitation.

Matty’s path becomes entangled with the twins Sophy and Toni, whose emotional detachment develops into manipulation, political extremism and violence. Sophy’s attraction to transgression leads her towards a planned kidnapping, while Matty believes he has been directed towards an act of sacrifice. Their stories converge in fire, linking the destruction that marked Matty’s childhood with the terrorism and moral confusion of a later generation.