'Seeking stories of Australia's Great Ocean Road, a young writer stumbles across a manual from a minor player in the road's history, FB Herschell. It is a volume unremarkable in every way, save for the surprising portrait of its author that can be read between its lines: a vision of a man who writes with uncanny poetry about sand.
And as he continues to mine the archive of FB Herschell - engineer, historian, philosopher - it is not the subject, but the man who begins to fascinate. A man whose private revolution among the streets of Paris in May 1968 begins to change the way he views life, love, and the coastal landscape into which he was born...' (Source: Publisher's blurb)
'It is uncanny to read a book that describes the same dim hallway, the same scullery kitchen and outdoor bathroom, as the place in which you live.'
'I think it’s fair to say that each year the selected novels on the Miles Franklin shortlist manifest the zeitgeist, reflecting on some of the issues that are troubling society.' (Introduction)
'Gregory Day is a poet, musician, essayist, nature writer, philosopher, critic and novelist. All these accomplishments fleck his fifth novel, A Sand Archive. Day is a regional writer, meticulously documenting people and landscape along the south-west coast of Victoria. Coasts mean sand. There’s much to be learnt from the fact of | sand, from the high culture of Mondrian’s dunes series to engineering Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Day grasps landscape as an intimate living thing, magical beyond our prosaic imaginations.' (Introduction)
'And so I patch it together … I take the liberty of seeking not only an explanation but a connection between what at first might appear to be disparate ingredients.’ The narrator of Gregory Day’s new novel, A Sand Archive, takes many liberties. Enigmatic in various ways, apparently solitary, nameless, and ungendered, this character is nevertheless full of fascinated admiration and affection for an older man who is virtually a stranger, and candid about the feelings and impulses that compel the creation of an intimate account of his life and career. The patchwork is composed of clues found in an obscure publication titled The Great Ocean Road: Dune stabilisation and other engineering difficulties by FB Herschell, along with an archive in ‘the small prime ministerial library at the university on the edge of the water’ in Geelong.' (Introduction)
'Gregory Day, like Tim Winton, is an Australian novelist connected with an Australian place. While Winton writes about Western Australia, Day’s points of reference typically lie along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Like his earlier work, Day’s latest novel also seduces readers to think more deeply about the area’s famously picturesque landscape and its towns, such as Barwon Heads, Breamlea, Split Point.' (Introduction)
'And so I patch it together … I take the liberty of seeking not only an explanation but a connection between what at first might appear to be disparate ingredients.’ The narrator of Gregory Day’s new novel, A Sand Archive, takes many liberties. Enigmatic in various ways, apparently solitary, nameless, and ungendered, this character is nevertheless full of fascinated admiration and affection for an older man who is virtually a stranger, and candid about the feelings and impulses that compel the creation of an intimate account of his life and career. The patchwork is composed of clues found in an obscure publication titled The Great Ocean Road: Dune stabilisation and other engineering difficulties by FB Herschell, along with an archive in ‘the small prime ministerial library at the university on the edge of the water’ in Geelong.' (Introduction)
'Gregory Day is a poet, musician, essayist, nature writer, philosopher, critic and novelist. All these accomplishments fleck his fifth novel, A Sand Archive. Day is a regional writer, meticulously documenting people and landscape along the south-west coast of Victoria. Coasts mean sand. There’s much to be learnt from the fact of | sand, from the high culture of Mondrian’s dunes series to engineering Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Day grasps landscape as an intimate living thing, magical beyond our prosaic imaginations.' (Introduction)
'I think it’s fair to say that each year the selected novels on the Miles Franklin shortlist manifest the zeitgeist, reflecting on some of the issues that are troubling society.' (Introduction)
