Under the Volcano : A Tale of a Marriage, a Journalist and an Island

This book tells the story of a family leaving northern Europe for a remote Atlantic island. A planned year becomes three, ending in a painful split over whether to return. Amid opera, writing, and village life, their daughter quickly adapts—while the parents grow apart in an island paradise.

The book tells the fascinating story of a family deciding to exit the demands of life in northern Europe and head for a sub-tropical life on an Atlantic island. A planned one-year stay expands into three years, but ends with a debilitating tug of war between husband and wife about whether to return north or not. The story which began so beautifully grinds to a sad end. The place they had ended up living was in a ramshackle house, covered in bougainvillea in a tiny, unspoilt village with no tourists since there was no beach. (However, unbeknown to outsiders, down a steep run of steps was an amazing large rock pool that had breathlessly clear water and only a couple of other swimmers.) When not swimming or doing up the house, the couple worked—in Jeany’s case at her opera concerts and in Jonathan’s case writing a history of Amnesty International, which Penguin had commissioned. Their eight-year old daughter, Jenny, went to the local village school. She spoke no Spanish but within three months she was fluent.