A novel from the Booker-Prize winning author Stanley Middleton. Rejacked and reissued in Windmill. Mary and David Blackwell are content in their marriage but when Mary, a talented opera singer, is offered the chance to sing in America, everything changes. David, a music teacher and amateur cellist, is left behind in England and, when he suddenly stops hearing from her, he must decide how to carry on and what to do. 'It is a very, very long time since any book made me physically cry. But Stanley Middleton's Valley of Decision did just that, twice... The story is simple... Anyone, well almost anyone, could write that story... But only Mr Middleton could turn it into something approaching a small masterpiece.' Martyn Goff, Daily Telegraph 'Increasingly, Middleton's command of the ordinary has become extraordinary... In this new novel the rigours and solaces of making music are cleverly (but uninsistently) counter-pointed with the human relationships that accompany them.' Anthony Thwaite, Observer