Gone

Jennifer Mills

Gone
Format
Paperback
Publisher
University of Queensland Press
Country
Australia
Published
28 February 2011
Pages
320
ISBN
9780702238710

Gone

Jennifer Mills

There can be no straight road home.

A young man is released from a Sydney prison, his hands empty, his identity gone. He catches a southbound train out of town, then hitchhikes west. He hasn’t been home for fifteen years.

For days Frank rides the highway through an unforgiving landscape, surviving on what he finds and the kindness of strangers. As he edges closer to a home he struggles to remember, his boyhood looms. Out of the past,

something is coming that will tear through his fragile hold.
Chilling, haunting, suspenseful, Gone is a crossing into one man’s splintered world.

PRAISE FOR JENNIFER MILLS

‘Deftly sympathetically and with a wry sureness of tone, Mills conjures a community so real its members come and go like familiars.’ Weekend Australian
‘Mills’s shapely novel offers many unexpected rewards, not least the seductive lilt of its prose.’ Advertiser

‘A deft, subtle touch’ Sun-Herald

Review

Following his release from a Sydney prison, Frank catches a train heading south. He has nothing; no cash, no supplies and no identity. He’s going out west to the home he hasn’t seen for 15 years and he will get there the only way his means will allow: hitchhiking. And so begins Frank’s desolate journey. Every day he wakes with nothing and relies on the kindness of strangers to get him to the next town and, if he’s lucky, to buy him a burger at a roadhouse cafe. The conversation becomes a ritual: Where’ve you come from? Where’re you heading? His travel companions are curious and grateful for a bit of friendly chatter. But Frank remains guarded and alert, constantly reminded of the unforgiving outback landscape and feeling plagued by the whispers of ‘backpacker murderers’ out on the open road. Then we start to realise that Frank is plagued by his own secret. A terrifying incident from his boyhood resurfaces through a series of flashbacks and we start to understand the true reason forFrank’s pilgrimage home.

This is a novel that builds slowly and works its way under your skin. It’s cleverly paced and the suspense runs through it like a babbling creek. Mills’s secondary characters are flawlessly drawn, providing plot twists and at times, light and humour, all without overshadowing our desperate hero. For me, the biggest triumph is the portrayal of the bleak surroundings. The outback towns breathe a life of their own, fuelling the novel’s sense of paranoia and dread. This is a satisfying novel that examines one of life’s biggest journeys: what it means to go home.

Steph Little is a freelance reviewer

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