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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'The much-anticipated third novel by award-winning Australian author Robbie Arnott, Limberlost is a story of family and land, loss and hope, fate and the unknown, and love and kindness.
'In the heat of a long summer Ned hunts rabbits in a river valley, hoping the pelts will earn him enough money to buy a small boat.
'His two brothers are away at war, their whereabouts unknown. His father and older sister struggle to hold things together on the family orchard, Limberlost.
'Desperate to ignore it all-to avoid the future rushing towards him-Ned dreams of open water.
'As his story unfolds over the following decades, we see how Ned's choices that summer come to shape the course of his life, the fate of his family and the future of the valley, with its seasons of death and rebirth.
'The third novel by the award-winning author of Flames and The Rain Heron, Limberlost is an extraordinary chronicle of life and land: of carnage and kindness, blood ties and love.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Author's note: For my family
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Selected as one of the ABC Arts best books of 2022
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Miles Franklin 2023 : A Guide to the Shortlist of Australia’s Biggest Literary Prize
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 25 July 2023; -
Queer Disobedience, Cultural Erasure and Uncomfortable Truths : Your Guide to the 2023 Miles Franklin Shortlist
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 24 July 2023;
— Review of Iris 2022 single work novel ; Cold Enough for Snow 2022 single work novel ; Limberlost 2022 single work novel ; Hopeless Kingdom 2022 single work novel ; The Lovers 2022 single work novel ; Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens 2022 single work novel -
Miles Franklin Award 2023: Shortlist Revealed for Australia’s Prestigious Literary Prize
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 20 June 2023; -
Robbie Arnott’s “Limberlost” : A Review by Lyndon Riggall
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Forty South Tasmania (Online) 2022;
— Review of Limberlost 2022 single work novel'Robbie Arnott’s much-anticipated third novel, Limberlost, feels recognisably steeped in the writer’s usual literary preoccupations, with a couple of significant points of difference. Following 2018’s Flames and 2020’s The Rain Heron, Limberlost feels less self-consciously clever, less busy, less ambitious, but entirely more honest. If Arnott’s previous offerings have been a stage performance, Limberlost feels more like having a beer at the pub with a friend.' (Introduction)
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Quiet Leviathans
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2022;
— Review of Limberlost 2022 single work novel
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‘Funny’, ‘Punchy, ‘A Gorgeous Writer’ : the Best Australian Books Out in October
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 4 October 2022;
— Review of Seeing Other People 2022 single work novel ; Tripping Over Myself : A Memoir of a Life in Comedy 2022 single work autobiography ; Limberlost 2022 single work novel ; Faith, Hope and Carnage 2022 single work autobiography interview ; A Kind of Magic 2022 single work autobiography ; The Sun Walks Down 2022 single work novel -
A Distant Leviathan : Robbie Arnott’s Realist New Novel
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 447 2022; (p. 38)
— Review of Limberlost 2022 single work novel'Limberlost opens with an image of nature as dangerous: a whale, reportedly driven mad or feral by a harpoon in its side, is alleged to be destroying fishing boats in a vengeful spree. Ned is five, and the whale stories haunt him so much that his father takes him out to see for himself. The frightened child waits in a small boat for the animal’s power to show itself.' (Introduction)
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Robbie Arnott Limberlost
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 15-21 October 2022;
— Review of Limberlost 2022 single work novel'Driving his young daughters home from school, Limberlost’s protagonist, Ned, stumbles through an accidental telling of an anecdote from childhood. The details, for which his children press him, suddenly feel distant, strange. Ned is struck for a moment by some fundamental grief, and wonders “if the troubled boy of that summer would recognise the man he’d become”.'(Introduction)
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The Best New Books Released in October as Selected by Avid Readers and Critics
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , October 2022;
— Review of Seeing Other People 2022 single work novel ; Limberlost 2022 single work novel ; The Sun Walks Down 2022 single work novel -
Books Roundup : Blackbirds Don’t Mate with Starlings, Nothing to Hide, Gemini Falls, Limberlost
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , October 2022;
— Review of Blackbirds Don't Mate with Starlings 2022 selected work poetry ; Nothing to Hide : Voices of Trans and Gender Diverse Australia 2022 anthology autobiography ; Gemini Falls 2022 single work novel ; Limberlost 2022 single work novel -
Miles Franklin Award 2023: Shortlist Revealed for Australia’s Prestigious Literary Prize
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 20 June 2023; -
Miles Franklin 2023 : A Guide to the Shortlist of Australia’s Biggest Literary Prize
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 25 July 2023;
Awards
- 2024 longlisted Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History
- 2024 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2023 winner Voss Literary Prize
- 2023 longlisted HNSA Historical Novel Prize — Adult
- 2023 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
