Cirrus@Austlit

'Carry me, son. Do not leave me behind.

'Are you listening to me?

'Of course you’re listening, you say, and add the F-word. Off you go to cope with a storm. Lucerne armfuls for horses. For cows, plain hay.

'Alone in the paddocks of his grass hotel a man tends to his beloved horses, Socks and Boy. The voice of his mother—accusatory, fragmenting from dementia—haunts his every move, an excoriating reminder of his failures in the world of people.

'The Grass Hotel is a story of damage and repair, of familial obligation and the resentments it can cause. It is also about the profound comfort that a connection with animals can offer.

'With its extraordinary use of language, Craig Sherborne’s novel is by turns savage and tender, raw and poetic: a small masterpiece.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Our monthly Australian books column also features Melissa Browne, Craig Sherborne and Debra Oswald telling us about their new releases and the books they’re looking forward to.' 

'Callum Smith - Wordsmith, Words for short - is a newspaper journalist of the old school. He knows how to write a story that sings, knows all the tricks of the tabloid trade. And he likes to drink with his colleagues, sometimes to flirt dangerously with young women.

'When his marriage blows up after a night of drinking goes way too far, Words is forced to leave the family home. Desperate to impress his estranged wife and feckless teenage son, he quits his job, taking a pay cut to work with a new online publication covering local crime. There the plum role of editor will soon be his, he reasons.

'To Words, 'Honesty is a thief - it steals your life.' Better to do whatever it takes to get back in someone's good books. And that is what he sets out to do, in a series of ever more calamitous, destructive and amoral adventures.

'Will the irredeemable Words win back his family? Or is comeuppance around the corner?' (Publication summary)

'They tried Mansfield but it was freezing and snowed and people like them don’t fit in because they don’t look prosperous. One time near Yellingbo they found a church no one prayed in and they lived there and for three weeks had stained glass for windows…They got chased out and went to Shepparton but Shane had a run-in and police said move.

'Shane, Moira and Midge, along with young Zara and Rory, are ‘trants’—itinerants roaming the plains north-west of Melbourne in search of disused houses to sleep in, or to strip of heritage fittings when funds are low. When they find their Tree Palace outside Barleyville, things are looking up. At last, a place in which to settle down.

'But Zara, fifteen, is pregnant and doesn’t want a child. She’d rather a normal life with town boys, not trant life with a baby. Moira decides to step in: she’ll look after her grandchild. Then Shane finds himself in trouble with the local cops…

'Warmly told and witty, Craig Sherborne’s second novel is a revelation—an affecting story of family and rural life.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Colin dreams of escaping his parents' New Zealand farm for a grand stage career. He makes it to London and a disastrous audition before meeting Tilda—beautiful Tilda, older, an artist—who brings his future with her. A heady romance leads to a new home in a decaying former bank in a small town hours from Melbourne. They are building a life together—but there are cracks in the foundation. This is a love story, told from passionate beginning to spectacular end. It is intimate and honest, blackly funny and emotionally devastating.' (From the publisher's website.)