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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Young Hugh Dixon believes he can save his father from ruin if he asks his estranged great-uncle Walter -- a wealthy lawyer who lives alone in a Tasmanian farmhouse passed down through the family -- for help. As he is drawn into Walter′s rarefied world, Hugh discovers that both his uncle and the farmhouse are links to a notorious episode in the mid nineteenth century.
'Walter′s father, Martin, was living in the house when it was raided by members of an outlaw community run by Lucas Wilson, a charismatic ex-soldier attempting to build a utopia. But like later societies with communitarian ideals, Nowhere Valley was controlled by the gun, with Wilson as benevolent dictator. Twenty-year-old Martin′s sojourn in the Valley as Wilson′s disciple has become an obsession with Walter Dixon: one which haunts his present and keeps the past tantalizingly close.
'As Walter encourages Hugh′s ambition to become an artist, and again comes to his aid when one of Hugh′s friends is charged with murder, the way life′s patterns repeat themselves from one generation to another becomes eerily apparent.
'Dramatic, insightful and evocative, Lost Voices is an intriguing double narrative that confirms Koch as one of our most significant and compelling novelists.' (From the publisher's website.)
Notes
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Epigraph: Loved, idealized voices/ Of those who have died, or those/ Lost for us like the dead. / Sometimes they speak to us in dreams;/ Sometimes deep in thought the mind hears them. / And, with their sounds, for a moment return/ Sounds from our life's first poetry -/ Like distant music fading away at night. - C. P. Cavafy, 'Voices', translated by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard.
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Dedication: To the memory of Frank Devine, joyous spirit, great friend.
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Book launched in Hobart by Jamie Grant at the Henry Jones Art Hotel on 22 September 2012.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also large print.
Works about this Work
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y
Neurocognitive Interpretations of Australian Literature : Criticism in the Age of Neuroawareness
London
:
Routledge
,
2021
21558011
2021
multi chapter work
criticism
'This unique book on neurocognitive interpretations of Australian literature covers a wide range of analyses by discussing Australian Literary Studies, Aboriginal literary texts, women writers, ethnic writing, bestsellers, neurodivergence fiction, emerging as well as high profile writers, literary hoaxes and controversies, book culture, LGBTIQA+ authors, to name a few. It eclectically brings together a wide gamut of cognitive concepts and literary genres at the intersection of Australian literary studies and cognitive literary studies in the first single-author volume of its kind. It takes Australian Literary Studies into the age of neuroawareness and provides new pathways in contemporary criticism.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
-
Christopher Koch and the Novel as Artwork
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Quadrant , May vol. 57 no. 5 2013; (p. 89-92) -
Home Truths
2013
single work
column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 23-24 November 2013; (p. 18) 'Christopher Koch's final novel embodies his unique place in Australian literature, argues Peter Pierce.' -
A Year of Experimentation: Australian Fiction Moving On
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 58 no. 1 2013; (p. 92-108) -
Best in Print
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 15 December 2012; (p. 30)
-
Tapping into the Evil Gene
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 29 - 30 September 2012; (p. 21)
— Review of Lost Voices 2012 single work novel -
[Review] Lost Voices
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 6 October 2012; (p. 30)
— Review of Lost Voices 2012 single work novel -
Masterful Narrative Gives Past a Voice
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 27 - 28 October 2012; (p. 18-19)
— Review of Lost Voices 2012 single work novel -
Demons in Van Diemens Land
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 3-4 November 2012; (p. 32) The Saturday Age , 3 November 2012; (p. 29)
— Review of Lost Voices 2012 single work novel -
Tasmanian Devils
2012-3
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 3 November 2012; (p. 29)
— Review of Lost Voices 2012 single work novel -
Undercover
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 22-23 September 2012; (p. 33) A column canvassing current literary news including a note on the launch of Christopher Koch's Lost Voices in Hobart, Tasmania on 22 September 2012. Susan Wyndham also comments on Karleena Mitchell's sculpture Art Attack, a protest against the cancellation of the 2012 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. -
At Home With...Christopher Koch
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 30 September 2012; (p. 91) -
The Double Man
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 29-30 September 2012; (p. 4-5) -
The Voice of Generations
2012
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 13 October 2012; (p. 28-29) The Sydney Morning Herald , 13-14 October 2012; (p. 28-29) The Canberra Times , 13 October 2012; (p. 19-20) -
Christopher Koch : Our Finest Living Novelist
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Quadrant , November vol. 56 no. 11 2012; (p. 7-9)
Awards
- 2014 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2013 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — Fiction Book Award
- 2013 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Fiction — Fiction
- 2013 shortlisted ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
- 2013 shortlisted Indie Awards — Fiction
Last amended 14 Nov 2017 09:42:46
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- Tasmania,
- 1800-1899
- 1900-1999
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