AustLit

'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)

'Soldiers have come to the village.
Ren looked up, avoiding Barlow’s words, resting her eyes on the pines that crowded the sky, swamp-green, thick, heavy with resin that stuck to skin and cleared throats, nostrils, eyes.
Barlow was sitting on a large rock. When she didn’t answer, he kept talking.
They’re after something—they won’t say what. But it’s up here. On the mountain.

'REN lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting and trading—and forgetting. But when a young soldier comes to the mountains in search of a local myth, Ren is inexorably drawn into her impossible mission.

'As their lives entwine, unravel and erupt—as myths merge with reality—both Ren and the soldier are forced to confront what they regret, what they love, and what they fear.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The mum and the dad are in bed but the boy is standing in the hallway. He’s been sleepwalking again.

'The boy wakes up in the middle of the night to find a man in his hallway. But this is no regular man. No, he’s a hall chimp. The man jumps around like a chimp, scratched his armpits like a chimp, rolls around on the floor like a chimp. The boy wants to play too…'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Show Your Working is a new monthly column exploring how some of our favourite writers get things done. In our first column, we take a peek at the desk of Robbie Arnott, whose debut novel Flames (Text Publishing) is nominated for the 2019 Miles Franklin Award, and who was announced as one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists for 2019.' (Introduction)

'Our 2018 short story anthology features stories from the ten finalists in the 2018 Tasmanian Writers’ Prize, as selected by Robbie Arnott, James Dryburgh and Lian Tanner.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The sand was hard and sharp and blowing up into Karl’s shins, whipped cruel by the dead northerly coming in over the white-chopped sea. He increased his pace, trotting across the beach, juggling his bucket and tackle box and rod, heading for the boatsheds and the trail that lay between them, the one that curled through the boobialla and up to the smoky heat of his house and lounge and family.' (Introduction)

'The sand was hard and sharp and blowing up into Karl's shins, whipped cruel by the dead northerly coming in over the white-chopped sea. He increased his pace, trot-ting across the beach, juggling his bucket and tackle box and rod, heading for the boatsheds and the trail that lay between them, the one that curled through the boobialla and up to the smoky heat of his house and lounge and family. ' (Introduction)
 

'FROM its opening sentence Robbie Arnott’s debut novel reveals a world as old as storytelling itself.

'A young man named Levi McAllister decides to build a coffin for his twenty-three-year-old sister, Charlotte— who promptly runs for her life. A water rat swims upriver in quest of the cloud god. A fisherman named Karl hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father takes form from fire.

'The answers to these riddles are to be found in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of family, tracing a journey across the southern island that takes us full circle.

'Flames sings out with joy and sadness. Utterly original in conception, beguiling in its descriptions of nature and its celebration of the power of language, it announces the arrival of a thrilling new voice in contemporary fiction. (Publication summary)