The Touchstone
St Leonards
:
Allen and Unwin
,
1995
Z447368
1995
single work
novel
"For nearly one hundred years Seymour Bazett has been burying 'treasures' in his backyard. His garden is full of the mementoes, keepsakes, trophies, experiences and sufferings that have made up his life. Now there is only one bit of gardening left to do - Seymour is about to bury himself. In digging his grave, however, he has unearthed some of his earlier burials. It is these objects that now conspire to tell the strange stories of how they came to be preserved. ... The Touchstone is peopled with eccentric characters and unlikely happenings tackling the minutiae of life, the grand passions of love and murder and the eternal issues of sex and death." (Book jacket)
La pietra di paragone
Rome
:
Fazi
,
2004
The Riders
Chippendale
:
Pan Macmillan Australia
,
1994
Z295967
1994
single work
novel
(taught in 3 units)
Fred Scully is in another country, a 'desert Irishman' far from home. After two long years of travelling through Europe, he decided to move his family from Australia to western Ireland. Scully arrived weeks ahead of his family to renovate the old farmhouse they'd bought in the shadow of a castle in County Offally, and which he's renovated by hand. Now, at the gate of Shannon's international airport, he anxiously awaits the arrival of his pregnant wife and seven-year-old daughter, envisioning a new life ahead, a fresh start. He has waited for and worried about this for months. He is a man who does not like being alone. The plane lands, the glass doors to the terminal slide open and his daughter emerges. Alone. There is no note, no word of explanation from his wife, only the mute silence of his stunned child. In an instant, Scully's life goes down in flames. This is a story of a marriage in our time. So begins a love-crazed odyssey across Europe, to the underside of the male psyche, in search of a woman vanished.
(Adapted from Trove)
I cavalieri Rome : Fazi , 2004
