'They were inescapable, the tensions of the adult world - the fraught and febrile aura that surrounded Ishtar and those in her orbit, that whined and creaked like a wire pulled too tight.'

A poignant, mesmerising debut novel about an unlikely friendship An elderly man, living alone in the suburbs, thinks back on his life - the missed opportunities, the shocking betrayals, the rare moments of joy. When his ten - year...

Most everything has dried up: water, the womb, even the love among lovers. Hunger is rife, except across the border. One night, a village is bombed after its men attempt to cross the border. Nine-year old Amedea is buried...

Coming of age in the nineteen-eighties: hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity. Sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, your first Mardi Gras parade, the painful sophistication and...

In this classic story of small-town life, two schoolteachers are drawn to each other by their concern for a lonely young girl. For as long as Vinny Lalor could remember, she had been on the fringe of things - in her family and at...

By his training as a profilist - a silhouette painter - Ethan Dibble has learned to take a sidelong view of life. When he arrives in early colonial South Australia he has no idea what to expect; but with his knack for observation...

The compartments in our father's life were not the separations he needed to build to preserve his sanity. They were his sanity. When he fell in love... when he fell to the abjection he deserved, the walls began dissolving.

Perhaps only the animals can tell us what it is to be human. a trench on the Western Front a cat recalls her owner Colette's theatrical antics in Paris. In Nazi Germany a dog seeks enlightenment. A Russian tortoise once owned by...

A blackly funny novel about an unlikely hero, and his misadventures on the flood he has created. In the drought - stricken Riverland town of Bartel in South Australia, after the suicide of his wife, Merv Rossiter steals a boat. He...