Cirrus@Austlit

'Growing up in inland Australia, Judy, a young teacher, has rarely seen the sea. But when she flees a rioting classroom one dismal Friday, a dud and a failure, she gets drunk and wakes up on a boat. Overnight her life changes; she is in love with being on the water and in love with Wes Bannister who lives on the boat. Sailing was not something Judy had ever thought about wanting, but now she craved it. Wind was the best teacher she’d had, by far…

'From then on, Judy believes that the one trusted continuation of herself is with Wes, and always will be, but then events at sea challenge their closeness. Must they become competitors against each other in the push to be equals? It seems they must.

'A Sea-Chase is a novel that vividly tracks ambition, self-realisation, and lasting love tied up in a sea story. The idea that nobody who sets off to do something alone, without family, friends, rivals, and a pressing duty to the world, ever does so alone, finds beautiful, dramatic expression in Roger McDonald's tenth, and most surprising novel.' (Publication summary)

'Years ago, in a midnight encounter beside the railroad tracks, a young boy meets a stranger with a powerful secret, a gift of uncanny understanding and a talent for knots. From this encounter, Marcus Friendly's ideas of himself take shape as he rises to become Australia's sixteenth Prime Minister. The night he dies, a shadow, ‘thin as a scythe', is there to collect him when he falls. Another young boy, Ross Devlin, witnesses the event.

'Ross eventually finds himself on an outback station working for Kyle Morrison, son of Australia's most famous poet, ‘The Bounder'. Kyle suddenly needs help to undo a knot of his own, and a young union organiser, Max Petersen, steps in to right an old injustice.

'Now, after years in parliament, Max Petersen, the inheritor of the Marcus Friendly tradition in more ways than one, awaits a call from the PM for the ministry he craves. Around him, a crisis among friends and family is unfolding, and everyone is forced to confront the legacy they have inherited, their influence in a changing world and what follows on after them.' (From the publisher's website.)

'In this sweeping epic of friendship, toil, hope and failed promise, multi-award-winning author Roger McDonald follows the story of Kingsley Colts as he chases the ghost of himself through the decades, and in and out of the lives and affections of the citizens of "The Isabel", a slice of Australia scattered with prospectors, artists, no-hopers and visionaries. Against this spacious backdrop of sheep stations, timeless landscapes and the Five Alls pub, men play out their fates, conduct their rivalries and hope for the best.

'Major Dunc Buckler, "misplaced genius and authentic ratbag", scours the country for machinery in a World War that will never find him. Wayne Hovell, slave to "moral duty", carries the physical and emotional scars of Colts's early rebellion, but also finds himself the keeper of his redemption. Normie Powell, son of a rugby-playing minister, finds his own mysticism as a naturalist, while warm-hearted stock dealer Alan Hooke longs for understanding in a house full of women. They are men shaped by the obligations and expectations of a previous generation, all striving to define themselves in their own language, on their own terms.' (From the publisher's website.)

'In 1834, aboard HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin wrote to his sister: 'My servant [Syms Covington] is an odd sort of person; I do not very much like him; but he is, perhaps from his very oddity, very well adapted to all my purposes.' When I first read this letter (quoted in the joint biography, Darwin, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore) I realised that if I were ever to write a novel about Darwin, then here was the novel in embryo.'

A convention of the novel is the character from the margins, someone present at a key event, plausible as an 'eyewitness' but not necessarily a main actor dramatically. Covington surpassed the convention by playing the role in real life and supplying the dramatic necessity. Later I read in Janet Brown's Voyaging her opinion that Covington was the unconscious shadow behind Darwin's every triumph. This was more my Covington than the person I'd sighted in the scant historical record. After his employment with Darwin ended, Covington came to live on the margins - in Australia'