The Baby in the Mirror
By Charles Fernyhough
Granta £12.99, 288 pages
FT Bookshop price: £10.39

The earliest years of our lives remain the most hidden. Common sense suggests that much of our destiny is shaped in that little span of time – our future happiness, future health, the likely success or otherwise of our relationships. Babies tell us what they can but it is often like receiving radio signals from a remote galaxy. Even after the onset of speech their language is a currency not quite like our own. And then it’s over; something more accessible begins. The doors of infancy swing shut.