Ghost River
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
Stories of the river were told across the city. There wasn't a child living within reach of the water who hadn't grown up warned away from it with tales of dead trees lurking in the darkness of the muddy riverbed, ready to snatch the leg of a boy or girl braving its filthy water.
The river is a place of history and secrets. For Ren and Sonny, two unlikely friends, it's a place of freedom and adventure. For a group of storytelling vagrants, it's a refuge. And for the isolated daughter of a cult reverend, it's an escape.
Each time they visit, another secret slips into its ancient waters. But change and trouble are coming – to the river and to the lives of those who love it. Who will have the courage to fight and what will be the cost?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
It’s no surprise that this deeply moving book by Australian author Tony Birch earned the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing. A stunning coming of age story that’s simply a pleasure to absorb, Ghost River is about two boys—the quiet dreamer Ren and the hardened Sonny—who uncover trouble and adventure among the alleyways, railways and abandoned factories and mills of Collingwood, on Melbourne’s Yarra River, in 1968. The cast is full of men, each with their own hard-earned life lesson to impart to the boys—whether they want to hear it or not. The river at the centre of the book offers Ren and Sonny a reprieve from their harsh lives, and Birch the opportunity to weave through themes of environmental destruction, sovereignty and authority in his elegantly understated style.
