FATHER LANDS, published by Picador Australia, 2002
winner of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Novelist of the Year
“You immediately know you are on a journey with an author who can deliver the promise of the first, fluid sentence.” -The Melbourne Age
“…one of the best American novels to come out of Australia. That it is a first novel from a young writer with the promise of more where this came from is further cause for acclaim.” -The Weekend Australian
“Poignant, funny and acutely observed” -Sunday Life
‘a moving an engaging love story.”-Canberra Times
‘lyrical, endearing and wistful…brimming with colourful and powerful images.’ -NW
SYNOPSIS:
The world of eight-year-old Cherry Laurel is an intensely sensual one–of cold noses, burning autumn leaves, changes of heart, childhood, nationhood…and betrayal. Her mother Bell and her father Jackson are failing to cope with the catastrophe of domestic life. And now Cherry has been volunteered for a ‘historical experiment’. Milwaukee’s notoriously segregated public school system is to pursue an active policy of Integration. cherry and her younger sister are bussed in, unaware that the shame of white America awaits them.
Meanwhile, during the autumn of that upside-down year, her parents’ marriage falls to pieces. Jackson leaves his wife and kids to endure winter’s blizzards, while Cherry’s only school friend, the wistful Hugo, haunted by family tragedy, is determined to find his own lost father. His momma Macy just wants to hold it all together…
Delia Falconer reviews Father Lands for Australian Book Review. In full here.