Thicker Than Water

Cal Flyn was very proud when she discovered that her ancestor, Angus McMillan, had been a pioneer of colonial Australia. However, when she dug deeper, she began to question her pride. McMillan had not only cut tracks through the bush, but played a dark role in Australia's bloody history.

In 1837 Angus McMillan left the Scottish Highlands for the other side of the world. Cutting paths through the Australian frontier, he became a feted pioneer, to be forever mythologised in status and landmarks. He was also Cal Flyn’s great-great-great-uncle. Inspired by his fame, Flyn followed in his footsteps to Australia, where she would face horrifying family secrets.
Blending memoir, history and travel,Thicker Than Water’ evokes the startlingly beautiful wilderness of the Highlands, the desolate bush of Victoria and the reverberations on one from the other. A tale of blood and bloodlines, it is a powerful, personal journey into dark family history, grief and guilt.

Reviews

Summer Reads of 2016, Guardian
Books of the Year 2016, The Times

‘Stunning. ‘Thicker Than Water’ is a thrilling debut, a true story that reads like a classy, compelling fiction’ The Times

‘A moving and impressive debut’ Telegraph

‘Deftly captures the looking-glass world of the antipodean landscape … Her account is vivid with a sense of strangeness … ‘Thicker Than Water’ is, to borrow a word Australians use when dealing with anything unsettling, a “confronting” book’ Guardian

‘Intelligently and evocatively written’ Allan Massie, Scotsman

'A searing tale of adventure and (self) discovery that shows the past is nearer than we think. Flyn is a writer with a gimlet eye and a big heart' Ben Rawlence

‘Thicker Than Water combines memoir, history, travelogue and lyrical nature writing; a true story that reads like classy, page-turning fiction’ Melanie Read, The Times

‘An unflinchingly honest, profoundly moving memoir’ Herald

About the author

Cal Flyn is a 28-year-old freelance journalist from the Highlands of Scotland. Previously she has been a reporter for both The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph, and a contributing editor at The Week magazine. She has been published in titles including the New Statesman, The Observer, The Independent, Prospect, Telegraph Magazine, The New Inquiry and FT Weekend, and recently won the 2013 Bradt/Independent on Sunday travel-writing prize for an article about the winter she spent training huskies and fjord horses in the Arctic. Cal holds a MA in Experimental Psychology from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and a NCTJ certificate in newspaper journalism from Lambeth College. ‘Thicker Than Water’ is her first book.