Bereft By Chris Womersley
Just as a footnote, bereft is one of those tricky words that I always have
trouble spelling, and this book with its complexity and twisting story deserves the title, aside from the layers of grief and loss that the word conveys. The book is a
haunting, evocative story of a the aftermath of a particularly traumatic murder in
1909. Twelve year old Sarah Walker
was murdered in a tiny remote inland Australian town, ‘the fly-speck town of
Flint’, the chief suspect was her older brother, Quinn, who fled the scene upon
discovery and to all intents and purposes disappeared off the face of the
earth. Ten years later In the
aftermath of the First World War, he returns unannounced to Flint to revenge
Sarah and to expose the truth.
He hides in the hills around the town, evading authorities
and slipping into his old home to see his dying mother. In his wanderings he meets Sadie, another
twelve year old who has been left adrift by life, and who seems uncannily to
channel Sarah’s voice.
This book deservedly did really well for Chris Womersley and
it has been a book that has been on my reading radar as a book I wanted to read
since it came out so I am really pleased to have read it at last and it was
worth the wait.
Winner ABIA Literary
Fiction Book of the Year
Winner of Indie Award for
Best Novel
Shortlisted for The Age
Book of the Year
Shortlisted for 2011 Miles
Franklin Award
Shortlisted for ASL Gold
Medal for Literature
Shortlisted for Ned Kelly
Award for Fiction
Shortlisted for CWA Gold
Dagger
Longlisted for Dublin IMPAC
Award
No comments:
Post a Comment