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'From the headland, we look across to the lighthouse on Seal Island where Mr Hammett has to take the gas bottle to keep the light flashing at night. Aunt Cele says there is no land between us and the bottom of the world where everything is white ice and there are penguins as big as men, but I know this already because Dunc has told me.
'Sylvie is five. It's the 1950s and she lives in Burley Point, a fishing village south of the Coorong on Australia's wild southern coast. She worships her older brother Dunc. She tries to make sense of her brooding mother, and her moody father who abandons the family to visit The Trollop, Layle Lewis, who lives across the lagoon.
'It's hard to keep secrets in a small town, but when Dunc goes missing, Sylvie is terrified that she is the cause. Now her father is angry all the time; her mother won't leave the house or stop cleaning. The bush and the birds and the endless beach are Sylvie's only salvation, apart from her teacher, Miss Taylor.
In the tradition of the novels of Anne Tyler and Eudora Welty, The Lost Child is a beautifully written story about family and identity and growing up. Sylvie is a charming narrator with a big heart and a sharp eye for the comic moment. As the years go by she learns how tiny events can changes entire lives, and how leaving might be the only solution when the the world will never be the same again. ' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Dedication: For my mother and sons.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Review : The Lost Child
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Good Reading , April 2014; (p. 37)
— Review of The Lost Child 2014 single work novel -
Review : The Lost Child
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 360 2014; (p. 54)
— Review of The Lost Child 2014 single work novel -
Child's Voice Drives Powerful First Novel
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 8 April 2014; (p. 6)
— Review of The Lost Child 2014 single work novel -
Fractured Families Haunted by Young Ghosts
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 29-39 March 2014; (p. 20-21)
— Review of The Lost Girls 2014 single work novel ; The Lost Child 2014 single work novel -
Well Read
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 1 February 2014; (p. 20)
— Review of The Lost Child 2014 single work novel
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Review : The Lost Child
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Books + Publishing , October vol. 93 no. 2 2013; (p. 22)
— Review of The Lost Child 2014 single work novel -
Well Read
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 1 February 2014; (p. 20)
— Review of The Lost Child 2014 single work novel -
Fractured Families Haunted by Young Ghosts
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 29-39 March 2014; (p. 20-21)
— Review of The Lost Girls 2014 single work novel ; The Lost Child 2014 single work novel -
Child's Voice Drives Powerful First Novel
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 8 April 2014; (p. 6)
— Review of The Lost Child 2014 single work novel -
Review : The Lost Child
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 360 2014; (p. 54)
— Review of The Lost Child 2014 single work novel
Awards
- 2015 longlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
- 1950s