'One family: Helen and John and their daughters Junie and Anna. Helen falls out of love with John, leaves, finds someone else, then a series of others, not paying enough attention to her daughters along the way. John is consumed by jealousy and hopelessness and in his self‐absorption also fails to notice signals from the girls. Junie grows up brittle and defensive, Anna difficult and rebellious.
'One tragedy: When 15‐year‐old Anna fails to come home one night, her mother's unconcerned, as she's done it before and always returned, so it takes three days for her to report it. But this time she doesn't come back... Anna has disappeared and the remaining family members spend the rest of their lives trying to make up for her devastating loss. Each of them must find their own way to cope. (Publication summary)
Dedication: For Mick, for Claudia, and for Rowan
'Stories of trauma — personal, communal and national — dominate the Miles Franklin Award, Australia's most prestigious literary prize, in its 63rd year.'
'The body becomes an island in Peggy Frew’s third novel, one submerged beneath the weight of grief and unhappiness.' (Introduction)
'The body becomes an island in Peggy Frew’s third novel, one submerged beneath the weight of grief and unhappiness.' (Introduction)
'According to the AFP, two Australians under the age of eighteen are reported missing every hour. Most are found alive, fairly quickly, but an unlucky few will progress to the category of long-term missing persons. From the Beaumont children of the 1960s to the more recent disappearance of toddler William Tyrrell, vanishing children have long troubled the Australian imagination. But the nightmare for their families is not one from which they can easily unsubscribe. Denied confirmation of life or death, families are suspended in an immiscible admixture of grief and hope. Peggy Frew’s third novel, Islands, brings a sympathetic eye to this painful subject.' (Introduction)
'Stories of trauma — personal, communal and national — dominate the Miles Franklin Award, Australia's most prestigious literary prize, in its 63rd year.'
