the Rich canvas of Tim Winton!
The Shepherd's Hut: A Novel by Tim Winton
Winton's opening instantly raises the tension. Justifiably angst ridden teenage Jaxi is heading for safety. His flight into the Australian outback 'bush' is grueling and I for one am amazed that he can even contemplate it, beginning as he does on foot. No one in their right mind heads into the Australian Outback as precipitously as Jaxie does! Carrying a gun, a few supplies, binoculars and water, all that he's able to scramble together, Jaxie heads out from Monkton in Western Australia north to Magnet to find his cousin and girlfriend Lee. His only friend. The only one who gets him.
Jaxie worked with his father Sid Clackton, aka Cap, the local butcher, a vicious alcoholic who has abused his wife and son all of Jaxie's life. When his mother dies with cancer, Jaxie is chained to his circumstances not through love as he had been, but through despair.
The thing is Jaxie arrives home to find Cap's body under the car, killed by the engine when a makeshift winch failed. Jaxie flees because he reckons people are going to say it was no accident, that he, Jaxie had killed Cap. Given that his father had just a few hours prior beaten the crap out of him, and that the only cop in town was Cap's friend, and as mean as his father to boot, Jaxie takes off.
Typical Winton reading! Hard, fast, and pithy with colloquialisms flying. As always his prose and descriptive writing is absolutely brilliant. If you've ever stepped though the Australian bush you'll recognize the landscape. If you haven't, imagining is made possible by a few words,
"I dug right into them scraggly trees. Stepping careful through the million sticks
and strips of bark in the shadows because getting snakebit wasn’t gunna be any
help."
I keep reading and am truly amazed by Winton's descriptions of the Outback, word pictures that bring to mind Fred William's paintings. Oh my! Just for this alone I'd give this book five stars. Let alone the story matter. This is a giant of a novel, unbridled and raw. I love it! And the small things, like Jaxie's binoculars, can be turning points.
Themes of violence, relationships, love, masculinity, and redemption are all heightened by the staccato delivery. Layer upon layer is pulled back as Jaxie's story unfolds and enriches in his meeting with Fintan MacGinnis, an Irish priest hermit type character in the middle of nowhere, all set against the brilliant light of the Western Australian landscape. An unapologetic view of life's harshness and relationships. I was fixated!
A NetGalley ARC
*****
Jaxie worked with his father Sid Clackton, aka Cap, the local butcher, a vicious alcoholic who has abused his wife and son all of Jaxie's life. When his mother dies with cancer, Jaxie is chained to his circumstances not through love as he had been, but through despair.
The thing is Jaxie arrives home to find Cap's body under the car, killed by the engine when a makeshift winch failed. Jaxie flees because he reckons people are going to say it was no accident, that he, Jaxie had killed Cap. Given that his father had just a few hours prior beaten the crap out of him, and that the only cop in town was Cap's friend, and as mean as his father to boot, Jaxie takes off.
Typical Winton reading! Hard, fast, and pithy with colloquialisms flying. As always his prose and descriptive writing is absolutely brilliant. If you've ever stepped though the Australian bush you'll recognize the landscape. If you haven't, imagining is made possible by a few words,
"I dug right into them scraggly trees. Stepping careful through the million sticks
and strips of bark in the shadows because getting snakebit wasn’t gunna be any
help."
I keep reading and am truly amazed by Winton's descriptions of the Outback, word pictures that bring to mind Fred William's paintings. Oh my! Just for this alone I'd give this book five stars. Let alone the story matter. This is a giant of a novel, unbridled and raw. I love it! And the small things, like Jaxie's binoculars, can be turning points.
Themes of violence, relationships, love, masculinity, and redemption are all heightened by the staccato delivery. Layer upon layer is pulled back as Jaxie's story unfolds and enriches in his meeting with Fintan MacGinnis, an Irish priest hermit type character in the middle of nowhere, all set against the brilliant light of the Western Australian landscape. An unapologetic view of life's harshness and relationships. I was fixated!
A NetGalley ARC
*****
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