The Turning
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the internationally acclaimed, Booker-shortlisted author of Dirt Music and The Riders comes a mesmerizing collection of overlapping stories set in small-town Western Australia. These searing and evocative stories examine the frailty of ordinary people and illuminate the turnings in life—the sudden detours, awkward awakenings and mid-life regrets—where each character must face the realization that the past always lives on in the present. This portrait of a starkly beautiful landscape and the characters that people it is a perfect mirror for Winton’s remarkable imagination.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Well-known in his native Australia and twice shortlisted for the Man Booker, Winton (Dirt Music, etc.) is overdue for wider recognition in the U.S. This collection of linked stories showcases his strengths: memorable characters colliding with the moments that define them for better or worse and clean, evocative prose that captures the often stultifying life in smalltown Western Australia. In the title story, Raelene, a young wife and mother living in a trailer park with her abusive husband, Max, becomes fascinated with her happy new neighbors; the seemingly perfect couple's influence sets Raelene on a muddled path toward self-examination, resulting in a transformation shocking for both its brutality and na vet . "Sand" reveals Max's cruelty as a young boy he tries to bury his younger brother alive while "Family" shows the two brothers meeting again as adults, with the balance of power between them shifting dramatically. Another character, Vic, is central to the book: he appears as an awkward adolescent fixated on unattainable older girls, as a young man coping with the legacy of his father's alcoholism and abandonment, and as a middle-aged man unable to come to terms with his past. Winton reveals a wide but finely turned swath of simmering inner lives; the sweetness of these stories, as well as their sharp bite, feels earned and real.
