In lesser hands the audacious scheme of this novel might have reeked of gimmick. As it is you never doubt that Ingrid Hill is trying to write the best book she can.
On a crystalline, perfectly blue morning in June, a young married couple driving across upper Michigan stop to picnic in a clearing, then watch in horror as their two and a half year old daughter suddenly vanishes, swallowed by what they discover hidden in undergrowth is a tiny hole in a poorly sealed and long-forgotten mineshaft.


As the rescue mission slowly grinds into action the media are determined to bring the drama into every home. Alone and swilling gin in the big house she's inherited, Jinx Muehlenberg watches live tv coverage and complains, "Why are they wasting all that money and energy on a goddamn half-breed trailer-trash kid?" And so Hill proceeds to take us on a 2,000 year journey, beginning back in ancient China, to demonstrate exactly why little Ursula's existence is so precious.
In truth there is no need to stretch back-story to such extraordinary lengths in order to kindle fierce sympathy for the loving, and much in love, parents as they agonize over Ursula's fate. The more we learn about Justin and Annie the more likeable they are and the more unbearable a tragic ending would be. Hill, however, insists "all story is also back-story, the underside of the iceberg explains what we see above."


Each of the historical episodes, which alternate with further instalments in the main action (including rather more conventional back-story), is an absorbing stand-alone story featuring direct ancestors of little Ursula, but it isn't essential to buy the philosophical point Hill is making about this connectivity - and, indeed, I don't.