'Stories of trauma — personal, communal and national — dominate the Miles Franklin Award, Australia's most prestigious literary prize, in its 63rd year.'

'According to the AFP, two Australians under the age of eighteen are reported missing every hour. Most are found alive, fairly quickly, but an unlucky few will progress to the category of long-term missing persons. From the Beaumont children of the 1960s to the more recent disappearance of toddler William Tyrrell, vanishing children have long troubled the Australian imagination. But the nightmare for their families is not one from which they can easily unsubscribe. Denied confirmation of life or death, families are suspended in an immiscible admixture of grief and hope. Peggy Frew’s third novel, Islands, brings a sympathetic eye to this painful subject.'  (Introduction)