The style of writing is sometimes direct, sometimes ambiguous, and littered with epigrams; for example: ''You've got to live a life proportionate to your nature. You've got to find out what that means and then stick to it.''
Anne Quirk has had a varied life, living in Canada, New York, Glasgow, and now a self-care unit in Saltcoats, western Scotland, but she has become unable to care for herself with the onset of dementia.
She is helped by Maureen, who has family problems of her own, preferring to hide in her bedroom rather than face the demands and chaos of a visit by her children and grandchildren.
Meanwhile, Anne's grandson, Luke, is in Afghanistan on a mission to bring electricity to an impoverished area.
I didn't enjoy the army lingo; in fact, I felt like Rashid, an Afghan attached to Luke's unit, when ''half the banter went over his head''.
However, O'Hagan paints a vivid picture of the landscape, ''like bundles of brown blankets slung over history'', and you can feel the stifling heat.
After the mission goes wrong, Luke heads back to Scotland, having only one obligatory dinner with his mother, Alice, who he has never connected with, and her new husband, Gordon (Luke's father was killed in Belfast).
They can't agree on a world-view/nationalistic debate, given their differing experiences.
Luke then takes his grandmother to Blackpool to see the famous Illuminations, and sheds some light on his grandmother's and mother's backgrounds (hints of which had been given earlier).
Anne had been a photographer when she took up with Harry (Alice's father), who is not as he appears in Anne's memories.
She has lucid moments, but also makes seemingly unconnected statements, although these are often explained by a train of thought that was triggered by a comment or an object.
Through the photographs, life and death, family and war, philosophies and realities, themes of light and dark are explored, but ultimately events are illuminated and we are enlightened.
I look forward to reading other work by this impressive author.
• Rachel Gurney is an avid Dunedin reader.
