Overview

The gripping story of one woman's odyssey into the Australian outback away from tragedy and towards regaining control over her life. 'Marvellous, surprising, exhausting' Observer 'A remarkable, powerful novel, all the more exciting for the exotic background so vividly described' Daily Express A young woman once told Thomas Keneally her life story. It was to lodge in his mind and haunt his imagination, becoming the kernel for this enthralling and emotive novel. It tells of a marriage that becomes a nightmare, of a distraught woman's flight, actual and symbolic, into the Australian interior, a story of pursuit, tragic accident and a final, strange catharsis.

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The story is a strong one and Keneally tells it with all his customary verbal richness and exactitude * Independent on Sunday * Unmistakeably the work of an accomplished writer . . . The Australian landscape is well evoked, and the characters continue to impress * Independent * Thomas Keneally is a novelist of high quality and great daring . . . Best of all he is a marvellous storyteller. This is a splendid and satisfying novel * Scotsman * Beautifully crafted . . . highly original and deeply moving * Sunday Express * Marvellous, surprising, exhausting * Observer * A remarkable, powerful novel, all the more exciting for the exotic background so vividly described * Daily Express *

Kate Gaffney-Kozinski is a rich young exurban Sydney matron, born well and married well into a Polish-Australian construction dynasty. She lives with her children, a boy and girl, in a beachfront house of magnificence, where she's too rarely joined by husband Paul, busy with his various political/financial schemes and a new mistress. When Kate cannot abide it any longer, she seeks comfort from her father over dinner; and while she's away with him at a restaurant, her house burns, killing the children and the babysitter. Kate retreats in instinctive horror, driving herself like a spike to be buried into the outback, coming to rest finally in the unpromising desert (but often flood-ridden) town of Myambagh. In training for being beneath notice, she becomes a barmaid, the associate of three kind, rough men: Jack, the taverner; Jelly, a local man renowned for saving the town once before with dynamite that blew a hole to let the floodwaters escape; and Gus, a farmer whose mission has been to rescue a pet kangaroo and pet emu from a theme park he'd in a lapsed moment sold them to. While Kate's in Myambagh, there's another flood - a dramatic affair that destroys much, but out of which Kate emerges with her soul half-restored (partly thanks, in the most poetic and stirring side-melody here, to Chifley, the pet kangaroo). Kate eventually returns to Sydney, to discover a horrifying truth about the fire that killed her children; and, in a long tragic spasm of fatality, to do something about it. One of Keneally's best - on a par with Confederates (1980) and Schindler's List (1982): a book so psychically expansive yet visually potent that you read thinking what a great film it would make, then at some point change your mind and think opera instead. The novel is charged with indelible characterizations, and Keneally's prose is compact, stinging, and near-perfect, moving you back and forward into action majestically. An unforgettable book by one of the finest moral imaginations in literature. (Kirkus Reviews)

A remarkable, powerful novel, all the more exciting for the exotic background so vividly described Daily Express Marvellous, surprising, exhausting Observer Beautifully crafted...highly original and deeply moving Sunday Express Thomas Keneally is a novelist of high quality and great daring...Best of all he is a marvellous storyteller. This is a splendid and satisfying novel Scotsman

'A remarkable, powerful novel, all the more exciting for the exotic background so vividly described' -- Daily Express 'Marvellous, surprising, exhausting' -- Observer 'Beautifully crafted...highly original and deeply moving' -- Sunday Express 'Thomas Keneally is a novelist of high quality and great daring...Best of all he is a marvellous storyteller. This is a splendid and satisfying novel' -- Scotsman

Author Information

Thomas Keneally began his writing career in 1964 and has published more than thirty novels since. They include Schindler's Ark, which won the Booker Prize in 1982 and was subsequently made into the film Schindler's List, and The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith, Confederates and Gossip From The Forest, each of which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has also written several works of non-fiction, including his memoir Homebush Boy, Searching for Schindler and Australians. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney.

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