Summary

In "Lost, But Catching Up," on the anniversary of her father's death, Macdonald sees the fox hunt pass her mother's house. She has never understood the sport. Then she sees a hound trail behind, "alone, which was wrong" (104). Macdonald marveled at the purity of its movements.

In "Swan Upping," after the Brexit vote, Macdonald became interested in the painting "Swan Upping at Cookham." The image depicts the tradition of swan upping: "the annual summer voyage of a flotilla of wooden skiffs that sets off from...Sunbury-on-Thames on a five-day journey to catch all the swans on the upper reaches of the River Thames" (105). The history of the tradition discomfited her, making her consider the relationship between "nationhood and identity" (107). She describes and discusses the swan's political significance, relating British conservatism to the Trump era return...