Search results for ""Author Fiona McFarlane""

A gripping, enigmatic collection of linked short stories about the reverberations of a serial killer's crimes in the lives of everyday people. In the small town of Barrow, Australia, people go about their ordinary lives. They drive to work through the dense state forest. They raise their families. They flirt and yearn. They lie and confess. Some of them leave home. Some of them return. Darkness thrums beneath the surface of these ordinary lives: the violence of one man, a serial killer whose murders made Barrow infamous. His twelve victims-women, men, mostly young-are long gone, but their deaths are felt, beyond the forest where they were buried, beyond this country, beyond even this time. In the past, where a young woman on a school trip to Rome sees something she shouldn't have. In the present, where a man confronts an ancient grief on the suburban streets of Texas. In the future, in the hands of journalists and podcast hosts and television actors whose live

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 'Brilliant, fresh and compulsively readable' ANN PATCHETT 'A blazing mystery . . . tremendous' GUARDIAN 'Masterful storytelling' WASHINGTON POST 'Gloriously orchestrated . . . kaleidoscopic'IRISH TIMES 'A thrilling success' WALL STREET JOURNALAn epic tale of unsettlement, history, myth, art and love - and of a small boy lost in the Australian desert from the prize-winning author of The Night Guest and The High Places.In September 1883, in a small town in the South Australian outback, six-year-old Denny Wallace goes missing.As a dust storm sweeps across the landscape, the entire community is caught up in the search. Scouring the desert and mountains, the residents of Fairly - newlyweds, farmers, mothers, artists, Indigenous trackers, cameleers, policemen - confront their relationships with each other and with the ancient land they inhabit. A land haunted by many gods - the sun among them, rising and falling on each day in which Denny could be found, or lost forever.PRAISE FOR FIONA MCFARLANE 'I can't think of another writer working today who I admire more' KEVIN POWERS, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE YELLOW BIRDS'An extraordinary writer'MICHELLE DE KRETSER, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF SCARY MONSTERS 'McFarlane has a gift for cutting into a story at precisely the right angle'THE TIMES'An intelligent and distinctive voice . . . a marvel'SYDNEY MORNING HERALD'An exceptionally fine writer'PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

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''This Möbius strip of linked stories bends and twists the crime genre until it is barely recognisable . . . The result is a riveting study of human nature''GERALDINE BROOKS, author of Horse''Addictively engaging, profoundly serious fiction from an underappreciated master''KIRKUS, starred review''A standout meditation on a community''s legacy of violence''PUBLISHERS WEEKLYIn 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged for a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both horror and resolution to the victims'' families, but its impact travels even further: into the past, as the murders rewrite personal histories, and into the future, as true crime podcasts and biopics tell the story of the crimes.From the killer''s childhood town to Texas, Rome and beyond, from the mid-twentieth century to the near-future, Highway Thirteen asks how do communities make sens

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'A blazing mystery . . . tremendous' Guardian'Moving and masterful' Daily Mail'Masterful storytelling' Washington Post'Brilliant, fresh and compulsively readable. It is marvellous' Ann Patchett'Remarkable' Harper'sA MASTERFUL NOVEL BY THE PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE NIGHT GUEST AND THE HIGH PLACES, AN EPIC TALE OF UNSETTLEMENT, HISTORY, MYTH, LOVE AND ART.In September 1883, a small town in the South Australian outback huddles under strange, vivid sunsets. Six-year-old Denny Wallace has gone missing during a dust storm, and the entire community is caught up in the search for him. As they scour the desert and mountains for the lost child, the residents of Fairly - newlyweds, landowners, farmers, mothers, artists, Indigenous trackers, cameleers, children, schoolteachers, widows, maids, policemen - confront their relationships with each other and with the ancient landscape they inhabit. The colonial Australia of The Sun Walks Down is unfamiliar, multicultural, and noisy with opinions, arguments, longings and terrors. It's haunted by many gods - the sun among them, rising and falling on each day in which Denny could be found, or lost forever.'McFarlane's treatment of the dust storm has a simple Steinbeckian majesty . . . Her prose is full of detail, comparable to Claire Keegan's keen-eyed novellas, Foster and Small Things Like These' Sunday Times'A thrilling success . . . full of mystery and wonder' Wall Street Journal'Fiona McFarlane's last book was scintillating. The Sun Walks Down is even better' Sarah Moss'Gorgeous storytelling and superb characters . . . magnificent' Michelle de Kretser'I can't think of another writer working today who I admire more' Kevin Powers'Gloriously orchestrated . . . kaleidoscopic in the Victorian tradition, as much a portrait of a community as Middlemarch . . . McFarlane knows what she's doing, and she does it exceptionally well' Irish Times

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Winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize 2017'The judges recognised the mastery of form which is present in Fiona McFarlane's unforgettable collection of stunning short stories . . . highly varied in tone and brought the reader to characters, situations and places which were haunting in their oddity and moving in their human empathy.' Chair of judges of International Dylan Thomas Prize 2017, Professor Dai Smith CBEBy the author of The Night Guest, a collection of fourteen scintillating short stories: surprising, wise, thought-provoking and superbly wrought. Ranging in setting from Australia to Greece, England to a Pacific island, they focus on people: their hopes, fears, dreams and disappointments, and their relationships - between ill-matched friends, daughters and mothers, fathers and sons, married couples and sisters. Some are eccentric, like the widower who believes his dead wife's mechanical parrot speaks to him, or the research scientist convinced that Charles Darwin visits him on his remote island; others delude themselves, like the mistress of a married man who thinks she's freer than her married sister. All are confronted with events that make them see themselves and their lives from a fresh perspective. It is what they do as a result that is as unpredictable as life itself.

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Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book AwardWinner of the inaugural Voss Literary PrizeJoint winner of the Barbara Jefferis AwardIn an isolated house on the New South Wales coast, Ruth, a widow whose sons have flown the nest, lives alone. Until one day a stranger bowls up, announcing that she's Frida, sent to be Ruth's carer.At first, Ruth welcomes Frida's vigorous presence and her willingness to hear Ruth's tales of growing up in Fiji. She even helps reunite Ruth with a childhood sweetheart. But why does Ruth sense a tiger prowling through the house at night? Is she losing her wits? Can she trust the enigmatic Frida? And how far can she trust herself?

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