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'Midday, January 1988. The bay side of the island. Helen is walking along Red Rocks Beach. A dull day, dull colours, a close, grey sky. And windy – wind raking up the waves, sweeping sand against her legs in stinging rushes.' (Introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Related Works
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y
Islands
Crows Nest
:
Allen and Unwin
,
2019
14978689
2019
single work
novel
There was a house on a hill in the city and it was full of us, our family, but then it began to empty. We fell out. We made a mess. We draped ourselves in blame and disappointment and lurched around, bumping into each other. Some of us wailed and shouted; some of us barely made a sound. None of us was listening, or paying attention. And in the middle of it all you, very quietly, were gone.
Helen and John are too preoccupied with making a mess of their marriage to notice the quiet ways in which their daughters are suffering. Junie grows up brittle and defensive, Anna difficult and rebellious.
When fifteen-year-old Anna fails to come home one night, her mother's not too worried; Anna's taken off before but always returned. Helen waits three days to report her disappearance.
But this time Anna doesn't come back...
A spellbinding novel in the tradition of Helen Garner, Charlotte Wood and Georgia Blain, Islands is a riveting and brilliant portrait of a family in crisis by the breathtakingly talented author of House of Sticks and Hope Farm.
