Bereft

by Chris Womersley

It is 1919. The Great War has ended, but the Spanish flu epidemic is raging across Australia. Schools are closed, state borders are guarded by armed men, and train travel is severely restricted. There are rumours it is the end of the world.
In the NSW town of Flint, Quinn Walker returns to the home he fled ten years earlier when he was accused of an unspeakable crime. Aware that his father and uncle would surely hang him, Quinn hides in the hills surrounding Flint. There, he meets the orphan Sadie Fox — a mysterious young girl who seems to know more about the crime than she should.
A searing gothic novel of love, longing and justice, Bereft is about the suffering endured by those who go to war and those who are forever left behind.

(From Publisher).

Chris Womersley’s debut novel, The Low Road, won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Book in 2008. His fiction and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Granta New Writing 14, Best Australian Stories 2006, Best Australian Stories 2010, The Monthly and The Age. In 2007 one of his short stories won the Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize.

Nominated by staff from our statewide network of libraries. This novel is of high literary merit and has already been shortlisted for the 2011 Miles Franklin Award

Set in 1919 as the Spanish flu sweeps Australia, a world tragedy provides the background and a domestic atrocity the foreground. The two interact to intensify the impact of this novel of love, longing and justice. A key theme is the suffering endured by those who go to war and those who are forever left behind. Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award.