'A beautiful novel ... it is barely possible to put the book down' Debra Adelaide.
'A dark brooding story of war, family secrets and a man's search for justice' Michael Robotham.
'I hammered through Bereft in a day; I didn't want to be away from it' Evie Wyld, author of After the Fire, A Still Small Voice.
'Chris Womersley has written a narrative that grips like a dingo's jaws ... This is a distinguishable novel' The Independent.
'This period literary thriller, with its dark, compelling, atmospheric writing and strong themes of atonement, is a book to read in a single sitting' New Books Magazine.
'This has to go down as one of the best novels of the year ... this is one novel you should definitely have high up on the list to discover. The sooner you read it, the longer it will be staying with you' We Love This Book.
'Just once in a while, a thriller comes along that is so good it takes your breath away. Womersley's second novel does that in a heartbeat' Daily Mail.
'Bereft is an other-worldly and utterly compelling story of grief and loss' Bookgroupinfo.
A CRIME UNSPEAKABLE.
Australia, 1919. Quinn Walker returns from the Great War to the New South Wales town of Flint: the birthplace he fled ten years earlier when he was accused of a heinous act.
A LIE UNFORGIVABLE.
Aware of the townsmen's vow to hang him, Quinn takes to the surrounding hills. Here, deciding upon his plan of action, and questioning just what he has returned for, he meets Sadie Fox.
A BOND UNBREAKABLE.
This mysterious girl seems to know, and share, his darkest fear. And, as their bond greatens, Quinn learns what he must do to lay the ghosts of his past, and Sadie's present, to rest.
Chris Womersley was born in Melbourne in 1968. His fiction and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Granta New Writing and The Age, and In 2007 one of his short stories won the Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize. Bereft is his second novel.
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Ellie Warren
@patchworkbunny | http://curiositykilledthebookworm.blogspot.com
January 4, 2012 7:29 pm
“Do you know, Quinn, there isn't even a single word for a parent who has lost a child? Strange, isn't it? You would think, after all these centuries of war and disease and trouble, but no, there is a hole in the English language. It is unspeakable. Bereft.”
World War I has ended and Quinn Walker returns to the small Australian town he ran away from so many years ago. He ran from a nightmare. Accused of murder and rape, of his own sister. Returning home to a town that wishes him dead, he hides in the hills and befriends an orphan girl.
Womersley's prose paints the perfect picture of the world inside these pages. It is fairly concise, not one of those overly descriptive tomes but the words seem to be spot on, from the light falling in his mother's room to the smells of the Australian bush.
The relationship between a grown man and a pre-pubescent girl, whilst touch at time, does give the novel a sense of unease. That the idea of child abuse is placed in your mind in the first few pages and there are constant reminders of the accusations against Quinn, makes it hard not to doubt him. The character of Sadie is quirky, strong and yet vulnerable underneath, yet I found myself unable to connect to Quinn. For the horrors he has seen both at home and in war, I would expect more raw emotion but Bereft is an oddly quiet account.
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