The Shepherd's Hut

"The novel builds suspense like a thriller, or more precisely an Australian western . . . A work of myth . . . reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's The Road." —Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, Financial Times

Tim Winton is Australia's most decorated and beloved novelist. Short-listed twice for the Booker Prize and the winner of a record four Miles Franklin Literary Awards for Best Australian Novel, he has a gift for language virtually unrivaled among writers in English. His work is both tough and tender, primordial and new—always revealing the raw, instinctual drives that lure us together and rend us apart.


In The Shepherd's Hut, Winton crafts the story of Jaxie Clackton, a brutalized rural youth who flees from the scene of his father's violent death and strikes out for the vast wilds of Western Australia. All he carries with him is a rifle and a waterjug. All he wants is peace and freedom. But surviving in the harsh saltlands alone is a savage business. And once he discovers he's not alone out there, all Jaxie's plans go awry. He meets a fellow exile, the ruined priest Fintan MacGillis, a man he's never certain he can trust, but on whom his life will soon depend. The Shepherd's Hut is a thrilling tale of unlikely friendship and yearning, at once brutal and lyrical, from one of our finest storytellers.

"Winton has triumphed again. This is a terrifying, electrifying novel charged by a singular voice and expert storytelling." —Malcolm Forbes, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Here is survivalist fiction at its rawest . . . Hypnotic . . . [Jaxie is] a bracing figure of resilience." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post